Quoting: Mountain ManCompanies that lose sight of their original focus tend to not last long.

To be fair, sometimes it works. A quick search turns up examples of famous companies that completely changed their focus and were fine, or got vastly more popular and successful as a result. Suzuki, now known for their motorcycles, originally sold mechanical looms, Avon originally sold books, etc.. Of course, sometimes it also doesn't work out (and I'm sure more business-savvy people than I could do a decent job predicting whether it will or won't for a particular case), but it's a little more complicated than a blanket statement either way.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Wow, that really does looks a lot like Islanders in the mechanics, doesn't it?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Hmm, it might just be a coincidence, but an overhaul of vassal mechanics around the time Dune came out? Wonder if we'll see any references…

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quotenot that I have any real idea what I'm doing as it's been a very long time since I played

I know the feeling. I actually backed it on Kickstarter and played some of the pre-release versions, and while I like it it's never quite managed to get me to play for more than a few hours at a time, so I play it for a bit, put it aside for a year or two, go back and start a new game with all the confusing new features, rinse and repeat. (And then I actually got the two expansions mid-last year since they got my attention, and hoo boy do they add a lot of new stuff.)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Cepheus update for the Overlord expansion, eh? Cepheus was the mythical king of Ethiopia, husband of Cassiopeia and father of Andromeda in the story of Perseus saving Andromeda from Cetus. An appropriate constellation pick.

I also enjoy playing with a bunch of vassals, so an overhaul of the vassalization system sounds cool. Especially if it becomes more like Crusader Kings, allowing you to play indefinitely as a vassal of a more powerful empire in a sort of "space feudalism" structure (where you either plot to take over from within, or serve as a loyal retainer).

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Ok, that is a pretty fun little Easter Egg. Now to wait for someone to make a mod for XCOM 2 replacing the tablet soldiers use for hacking when playing it on the Deck…

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Craggles086I remember when I thought Cut and Paste into a terminal using the mouse right click felt like a luxury feature. Now get annoyed when it isn’t enabled by default..

No joke, the second middle-click clipboard is probably like at least 50% of why I originally switched to Linux at home after experiencing it at work. And after 8 years I now get irrationally enraged whenever I go to use it on another operating system and it's not there.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

QuoteOpen the Konsole terminal application, and drag the "install on Linux.sh" file into the Konsole window.

That works to run a .sh file in the terminal? You learn something new every day!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

QuoteFor me, I don't really think any experience like that should be in the Playable category. Did no testing ever find any of these issues? How deep and repeated is the Deck Verified testing on each game? We really have no clue.

To be fair, what other category would it go into? It went through the verification process, so it couldn't be Unknown. It didn't fit in Verified (for whatever reason). You were able, technically, to get it to work (and it ran rather swimmingly), so it's not Unsupported. That leaves just one option: Playable. I'm not trying to score cheap points here, and I do think this is a problem, but it's a problem baked in to how Valve collapsed the infinite spectrum of "how games run" into just four categories:

Verified: this game fits all the other criteria (like font size, text input, etc.) to be enjoyable on the Deck. (Though looking at the requirements again just now, it technically doesn't specify anything about how well it runs—you could have a game that crashes to desktop every half-hour and it'd still be Verified if it fits the criteria.)
Unsupported: we don't support this game, or it just doesn't run. (You might be able to get it to run, but we won't put effort into making it run.)
Unknown: *collective shrug, we haven't tried it yet*
Playable: everything else. That runs the gamut from "literally flawless performance, but it gives you Playstation controller glyphs" to…well…what we see here.

I think the problem is that those of us familiar with ProtonDB are expecting something like Verified = Platinum, Playable = Gold, and Unsupported = everything else, but it's not a one-to-one translation, and even if it were it'd be more like Unsupported = Borked and Playable = Gold, Silver, and Bronze.

On the one hand, I can see why Valve did it: there's no need to do the incredibly messy task of quantifying how well a game runs. If, hypothetically, they'd introduced an additional "Problematic" category for games that are technically playable, but have problems…well, where would you draw the line? There'd be endless arguments about whether a game was Playable or Problematic no matter what they decided.

On the other hand, we end up in this situation, where if it's been tested (so not Unknown) and isn't Verified, and does actually run, then by default it ends up in the Playable bin, regardless of the actual experience of playing it. It's not a great look, and I think Valve might really have been wise to include a tier for "playable, but it's got serious issues" that they could chuck games like this into. The endless arguments would probably be less problematic than people buying Playable games expecting Gold quality, and getting Bronze. It remains to be seen if Valve will make any changes to the system in light of feedback like this.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: BielFPs

Quoting: Philadelphus

Quoting: BielFPs[…]drive people out of windows is not Valve's goal in anyway[…]

Yes, it really is. Valve have basically said this on multiple occasions,and their actions back it up.

Read the whole article you've linked, and couldn't find any claim of that, actually it's more similar to what I've said in my answer to purple guy:

Quoting: BielFPsfor not being dependent from other company decisions

All this effort is Valve driving out themselves from Microsoft system, not it's users, I know it may sound weird but there's a difference on that.

Yes, they haven't said it as many words, but it's pretty obvious when taken in the context of what Valve has been doing for the last decade or so. It's a difference without a distinction; there's no point in Valve getting themselves out of Microsoft's system if their users don't come with them. Steam runs on MacOS and Linux, so Valve are already out of Microsoft's system and have been for a decade…except that fact means nothing to them as long as ~95% of gamers are still on Windows.

Quoting: BielFPsIf the goal of Valve was to "Defeat evil Windows by making Linux to rise as the supreme OS on desktop" like some passionate linux users seems to think (not talking about you of course), they could simply stop supporting their steam windows client and tell everyone to install linux (or only steamOS) to keep using steam. Of course they will never do this because they would only lose a lot of money/user base and would open a "power vacuum" on windows gaming scenario for a competitor to fill.

Of course they can't just stop supporting Steam on Windows, because that would financial suicide. And while I'm not pretending Valve are infallible or always make the best decisions (they don't, just to be clear), they're not that stupid. They know that they can't get gamers away from Windows with the stick when those gamers make up ~95% of their customers, so they are instead employing the carrot: providing something their customers want (a portable, affordable gaming PC) while introducing those customers to an alternate operating system, showing them that it isn't just the realm of techno-nerrrrds anymore but can actually be used by the average consumer. And hopefully (from Valve's perspective), that exposure will—over time—start to slowly wean people away from Windows.

I doubt Valve's goal is to someday have zero Windows users, but I bet they won't begin to truly relax until Windows makes up no more than maybe ~half their users.

Quoting: BielFPsMicrosoft may be greedy and rely on shady practices but they aren't stupid, they know there's no scenario nowadays where they can succeed forcing lock in practices on desktop like they tried to do back to win 8 years (or like they succeed back in the 90's). Valve efforts with SteamOS and the backlash of other fronts made sure they learnt this lesson. Nowadays It's more likely to see Microsoft software running in other systems than they pushing out third party software out of their systems, for example .NET becoming open source was a consequence of they realizing that they would start to lose market if they kept lock in practices in scenarios where are already strong competitors (like game stores).

Nowadays Microsoft EEE stands for: Embrace, Extend, Embed.

Quoting: Philadelphusbut Valve clearly feel existentially threatened by this fact and have since the release of Windows 8.

Yes

I actually agree with you that I don't think Microsoft nowadays would suddenly pull an Apple and close off Windows, but the important thing is not reality, it's Valve's perception of reality, and they're clearly still scared of this possibility. *shrug*

Quoting: BielFPs

Quoting: PhiladelphusThey've been working for around a decade on getting gamers off of Windows so that they're no longer dependent on Microsoft.

string gamers = "themselves";

Like I said, Valve have been "off Windows" since Steam was released for MacOS in 2010. They still seem pretty interested in getting gamers off Windows though… (see: Steam Machines, Steam OS, Proton, etc., etc.)

Quoting: BielFPsValve is in no way a "small company" they're the owner of the current biggest game store on the planet, to the point of steam being the synonym of "PC gaming" for a lot of people, they're to game store scenario what windows is to desktop os, and here is where I want to make the point.

Valve has ~360 employees according to Google, which is almost ludicrously tiny for a global operation that services tens of millions of people daily on three operating systems. It doesn't matter how much money they have or how big their market share is, they can't just write a check for a million dollars and *poof* Windows support into place: it require effort from human beings, and Valve doesn't have a spare team of 200 people lying around to throw at problems. With how many updates Steam OS has been getting (and how fast some fixes have come out), they probably don't have a single person to spare at the moment. That'll change down the road, of course, as Steam OS matures and they're aren't in crisis mode trying to patch it, but that could be months, and since it's in their long-term interests to have as many people using Steam OS as possible I highly doubt they're going to be prioritizing Windows support.

Quoting: BielFPsWindows(OS) and Steam(client) aren't necessary direct competitors, simple because Valve (steam) profits whenever you are buying to play on Windows / MacOS / Linux, and Valve doesn't need to "spent" a penny on driver support because Microsoft will mostly take care of that. Why would they do this you may ask? Because for Microsoft is "bad" if people don't install Windows on Deck, but for Valve is "good" to have both systems supported because their profit comes from steam (client) and hardware sells (deck), and not from SteamOS, that only serve as a mean to be independent from Microsoft/any other company and to not be bound to software limitations on their hardware.

The only case I can think of Deck support windows being "bad" for Valve is if Microsoft does this while also pushes they own store (or a competitor), otherwise it's a win/not lose situation to them.

I agree that Windows working on the Deck is not a bad thing for Valve in the short run, and they're not going to, like, sabotage it or anything, but it is a bad thing (in their view) for the long run, since the whole point of putting Steam OS on the Deck is getting people off of Windows. Valve are clearly in this for the long haul (see: the last decade of things they've been doing), so it doesn't make much sense for them to suddenly lose sight of the long-term goal to pursue a short-term gain.

(On a tangent, people talk about Valve's short attention span, but they've clearly been pursuing this for quite a few years at this point—I think it's less that they have a short attention span and more that they're willing to drop things quickly and try again if they don't pan out, which, if not taken in the context of their long-term goals, might look like random waffling.)

Quoting: BielFPsTo conclude my point of view: People dropping Windows in favor of Linux might be a consequence of those efforts but not Valve's main goal.

And here we may just have to agree to disagree, because I just don't see another logical explanation for the aggregate total of Valve's actions over the course of the past decade than trying to move people off of Windows. If they didn't care about people being on Windows, the Steam Deck would simply come with Windows and be $X dollars more expensive (or they'd eat the costs and make it up in game sales). Valve have invested literal years of effort and tons of money into enabling tens of thousands of games to be playable on Linux, despite Linux gamers making up a tiny fraction of their revenue (I don't know the exact number, but I think from various people reporting on their games it's no more than ~5% at most). Why? They could have spent those resources any number of ways, such as making Steam better for the other ~99% of their customers, or on new games they could sell for even more money. They have poured resources into Linux support way out of proportion to how much money Linux users bring them—not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because they think it's important. Again, why? Why is it important to Valve that people are able to play games on Linux? Because Linux is an open ecosystem where they don't have to worry about being locked out. (Sure, Microsoft seems unlikely to do that now, but who's to say what a new CEO does in ten years time? It was only a decade ago that it seemed plausible that Windows might get locked down, after all…)

All of that is theoretical, though, if 99% of their userbase is not on Linux; they're still in the same boat of being dependent on Microsoft. And since even moving their entire MacOS userbase to Linux would still leave them ~95% dependent on Windows, the inexorable conclusion is that Valve really, really, want to migrate users from Windows* to Linux to protect themselves.

*Or MacOS, I'm sure they're not picky.

View this comment - View article - View full comments