Quoting: Purple Library GuyI was just thinking about the way some of the reviewers were complaining about not being able to try Windows on it yet because there's no driver for the APU and I suddenly realized hey, yeah . . . this is probably the first time there's been a graphics card that had a Linux driver before it had a Windows driver. Gave me a bit of a snicker, to be honest.

Pretty canny move from Valve, to be honest—"Yup, it's just a PC, so you can install whatever OS* you want on it! Oh, but the Windows drivers aren't available at launch so it'll be a sub-par experience, sorry…" :whistle:

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad for the openness that lets people install other OSes on it, but Valve's not under any compulsion to treat all OSes as equal when it comes to allocating their efforts. And I must admit to just a smidgen of schadenfreude at the thought of Windows being the second-class citizen for once.:happy:

*How long until someone puts macOS on it out of curiosity, I wonder? Or BSD?

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For those of you who have a date of sometime after Q2, Valve said to expect more news on that "soon".

"After Q2" gang represent! :grin: Ah, well, nothing to do but compose my soul in patience. At least it sounds like we'll get a more stable product with more of the bugs ironed out. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose…

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyOften in a 4X game, my favourite part is the "Expand" part. I don't want it nobbled. You're already limited by Influence, too.

I hear yah, that's one of my favorite parts too, right after "Explore". Just think of it this way: by slowing down the expansion phase for everyone, you get to enjoy more of it before the galaxy fills up and it's down to the relatively less-interesting politicking. :grin:

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I really liked seeing those photos of all the variations they considered before settling on this form. I remember seeing similar photos for the Steam Controller, and that's what had me convinced that the Steam Deck was going to be just fine ergonomics-wise. Valve's not afraid to think completely outside the box and do things differently than "that's how game controllers have always been shaped", so whatever they came up with was likely to be pretty optimal given the constraints (like of being, well, hand-held). And reviews generally seem to bear that out.

Quoting: TiZExcellent writeup, Liam. I picked up a 1TB microSD in preparation for this, formatted it BTRFS, and moved most of my library over to it. I still have 200GB free on it thanks to transparent compression; the whole thing is zstd:3 and I saved 160GB!! Do you know if Deck will support BTRFS on microSDs?

In one of the several reviews I read today it said it needed to be formatted as ext4, but I don't have a link on hand, sorry.

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Quoting: CyrilAny chance to see it coming on GOG or itch.io?

No idea, but if you're not already aware it's always been completely free [External Link] and always will be.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuySay, I decided to try one of these (Ixion) and when I clicked to download the demo it wouldn't on the grounds that it's Windows only. I presume there's a way to tell it that's OK I'll try it with Proton, but I've never actually tried to do it before. Can any kind soul tell me what I should be doing?

I used to have that problem, and then someone here explained how to fix it; I think you go into Settings, then Steam Play, then under Advanced tick the "Enable Steam Play for all other titles" check box, possibly? Maybe tick "Enable Steam Play for supported titles" above it, too, just to be safe. If that doesn't work then I've forgotten. :whistle:

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I think the Custodian Initiative is one of the better decisions Paradox has made. I get that they have to keep cranking out new shinies to get people to continue supporting them with DLC purchases, but it's great that they can devote a bit of resources into going back and polishing up older stuff.

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Steam Workshop support would be cool. I've dabbled with mods in the past (even made a few simple proof-of-concept creature mods), and it'd be nice to have the ease of the Workshop to install them.

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Steam Machines were a (to be brutally honestly) inferior "solution" to a non-existent "problem". (How do I play all my PC games at home → on the Windows desktop I already own; why would I need another desktop that plays fewer games?) For Linux gamers they were superfluous, for Windows and Mac gamers they were a downgrade. It's completely inevitable that they didn't go anywhere.

The Steam Deck, on the other hand, is a solution to a problem that doesn't really have a great solution yet. (How do I play my library of PC games on the go/while away from my main gaming rig?) Yes, there are laptops and other handheld computers, but both are more expensive and typically running Windows, which ironically works against them in this case due to its terrible fit on a portable device. Valve's offering an OS made to work with games, while also serving as a general-use system if need be. The fact that it can't play every game at the time of release is less important, both because Valve are committing to getting as many working as possible, and because the requirement of a Steam account to buy one means that most people getting a Deck likely already have a gaming machine of some sort (so if a game doesn't work on the Deck, they're not locked out of playing it completely, and they likely have other games that do work while they wait).

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I tried out two more demos last night:

Tinykin [External Link]
This left me so confused. Mechanically, it's a very close copy of Pikmin (finally, someone made a PC version of it!) where you lead around a group of "tinykin" which you can throw at things to, e.g., move them, but thematically… I feel like I'm missing something, as the presentation almost feels like the protagonist (named *snerk* "Milodane") is some established character in another genre (like a comic book or a cartoon or something) who's been included in this game. But I have no idea if that's actually true or not and I came away utterly confused. It's a really large demo, I gotta say, I played for about an hour and a half and still hadn't finished exploring the truly gigantic first level after the tutorial levels.

Ixion IXION [External Link]
I've seen it described as "Frostpunk in space", and while I haven't played Frostpunk to compare I did find it a rather interesting city-builder/boldly-go-where-no-one-has-gone-before simulator. It felt extremely similar to The Wandering Village in some ways, in that both involve a mobile living space where you mainly get new people and resources for your city by finding them in away missions. IXION certainly looks gorgeous; it was really neat being able to scroll around the Solar System where you start and see the planets and Sun.

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