Quoting: stretch611Well, technically,someone who is having problems buying food could have had a good paying job in the past and a steam account with a bunch of games in it. They may not being able to afford new games but they should be allowed to access their existing games. (and actually having older games would be a reason why they need 32 bit support.)

And nobody is denying that. Old versions should continue to work - and why won't they? E.g. Steam, other than possible changes to server APIs for newer versions, but even those could be backported to 32bit versions or the API could have two versions available.
This is about upgrading for the new stuff that requires it.

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: TheSHEEEPAnyone who can regularly afford to buy a game can afford 64bit hardware.

This is obviously not the case. First, I am a counterexample, as I had mentioned to MIRV pages above. Therefore you are empirically wrong. Second, a game on sale on Steam costs $10-20 (Cdn) or less per game. A new game computer to replace my old one costs $1500-2000 (Cdn). It is very easy to be in a situation in which one can afford the occasional $10 but not $1000+; what on earth is odd about this concept? Note that a thousand dollars is a hundred times as big as ten dollars. Two thousand dollars is two hundred times as big as ten dollars. Often, people who can afford x cannot afford 200x. Now you know; if you have been having problems with budgeting, perhaps this news may help you in the future.
Apologies for the sarcasm, but I think people leading with big posters of "Won't somebody please think of the children" (without a question mark, for some reason) while talking obvious nonsense are kind of asking for a bit, eh?

First of all, who the hell needs to spend ~1000€ to upgrade their years old 32bit piece to support 64bit?!
For 1000€ at this day, you get a PC that is capable of running all the latest games (except maybe unoptimized stuff like Kingdom Come or Star Citizen...) on high settings. And you can get that for much cheaper by assembling it yourself and/or using used parts and/or sales, etc. With some time investment, one can cut the cost of a whole PC in half. But that is something you don't even need.
I said "64bit hardware", not "64bit machine beasts" or even whole PCs.
What determines the 32bit or 64bit support? For those who don't know, it is the CPU. Only the CPU. Well, and if you want the motherboard by extension, as the CPU has to fit there. I'm sure there are ancient motherboards that could not fit a many years old 64bit CPU. But if your rig is that ancient, even a $300 rig from ebay will be a significant upgrade.
Anyway, at the very maximum you'd need a CPU, a motherboard and 2-4GB of RAM (if you were below 8 before). And none of that has to be the newest stuff. 5-10 years old pieces of those already support 64bit. We're talking flea market territory here. No way you couldn't find something like that for under $300.
The way you made it sound, you got one hell of a rig that only supports 32bit, though. That is definitely a big WTF?!, but it also means it cannot be that old and you only need a new CPU.

And all you have to do for $300 is not buy a game on sale for up to 30 times. I'm sure there are enough games in your library to keep spirits up during that harsh time.
If you cannot do that, I am fairly sure it is you who has problems with budgeting, not me - I happen to have a job that teaches me to be rather good with it as well as paying my bills. You should try it one of these days - or maybe you are a student. Depending on the country, those can be way more poor than just unemployed people. Ask me about Finland :whistle: - but even here, there are student loans.

It is definitely news to me that poverty makes you blind to logic, knowledge about hardware or reading comprehension. Or maybe you are just angry at people who can afford things? Or you just wanted to get that elitist prick off his high horse? Sorry to tell you, but I bought the horse armor DLC. You gotta try harder.

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: TheSHEEEPSorry, I had to do that ;)

It's good that you haven't been in the situation. I don't wish it to anybody. But I wish enough phantasy and empathy to everybody to imagine it, and, as a result, not making jokes about it. To be clear: not funny.

I haven't been in the situation of living on a shoestring budget? Weird, I seem to remember doing that for 2,5 years while learning to become a programmer... I have been, and I was able to afford something after months of saving up for it (I remember buying a Wii).
I'm thankful for the experience, as it made me stronger. It also gave me a strong dislike of cheap spaghetti...

I'm also living with my GF who has to do that RIGHT NOW (students in Finland, oh dear...) - and she would NOT accept my help, she's paying her part of everything. And she has already grown stronger from the experience.

You only seem to use poverty as an excuse.
It is not.
And by reassuring someone in that situation that it is an excuse, you aren't helping them, you just strengthen the excuse.

To be clear: I don't give a rat's *** what you find funny or not. I despise "nice" people who make themselves feel better by being "oh so supportive" and "oh so empathic" towards people in a bad spot, not realizing they only do it to make themselves feel good about it.
I may not be a nice person, but at least I don't pretend.

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: TheSHEEEP:lol:
Oh, please. What comes next? Starving children in Africa?
It's not like we're talking about having to buy high-end machines for 1.5k €...
Pretty much everything you can buy today for pretty cheap is 64bit.

You're aware there's people who do not have money for anything except the essential?

Sorry, I had to do that ;)

I really don't see how someone who can barely afford their own food is relevant in a discussion about anything Steam-related.
It's not like that person will have too much money to spend on Steam games.

Anyone who can regularly afford to buy a game can afford 64bit hardware.
Again, it's not like you could actually buy anything that isn't 64bit - except smartphones, but even those are now (slowly) switching to 64bit.

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Quoting: thelimeydragonWhenever I install the 64-bit Nvidia driver it always asks if I want to install the 32-bit libraries along side it. Which I say yes to, as I need it for older games.

Or just have to use the open-source drivers

Nvidia is dropping support of their drivers for 32bit systems, so it is either older versions or open source drivers.
Especially for older graphics cards and games, I think open source drivers are already quite usable.

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Quoting: GuestSome people can't afford to update their hardware. I guess they're to blame and should lose access to their game library?

:lol:
Oh, please. What comes next? Starving children in Africa?
It's not like we're talking about having to buy high-end machines for 1.5k €...
Pretty much everything you can buy today for pretty cheap is 64bit.

Quoting: GuestNo matter if it's one person, 1%, or 90% of the userbase.

Yes, that does matter very much.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. And that includes the need to advance in software, and not be stuck in the past.
Far more people are bothered by Steam being 32bit with all the negative consequences that has than those who would be bothered by having to upgrade to 64bit. And this is not only a linux problem, it affects Windows, too.

Quoting: GuestDon't mind no further updates, but telling people their system is now too old so no more old games is wrong.
...
At least with drivers the OS doesn't need updates to continue working - a frozen snapshot will do. I would hope Valve allow the same if they ever switch away from 32bit.

That I agree with. No reason not to offer an old version as long as it can deal with the current backend APIs, etc.

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: AzPThe most insane thing is that Steam is still 32-bits and a lot of games as well. That was a hard realization when I had to build all the 32 bit libraries that they depended on when disabling STEAM_RUNTIME on Gentoo.

Yeah, though I doubt it will remain like that for very long.

If Steam don't support 32bit, then those people who are using a 32bit system might suddenly stop having access to their game library. Not updating 32bit Steam then might hold back 64bit updates lest they break something. It's a tricky situation they've backed themselves into really.

Almost nobody is running 32bit systems any more. Especially not gamers. Even on Windows, where people are less.. enthusiastic about tech, less than 2% are left using 32bit systems (according to Steam hwsurvey). Quite simply, Steam could afford to lose a handful of people.
And if they did the change, I'm certain most users on a 32bit system would simply upgrade anyway. What else would they do, not play any more games? It's not like there is a real alternative to Steam around.

Honestly, there is no reason to stick with 32bit systems any more other than "no need to upgrade" or old hardware.
It's been known since many years that 32bit won't be lasting too much longer any more, not getting newer software, etc.
At some point, people who still stick to their old stuff just have themselves to blame and developers should NOT hold back because of them.

And if someone, for some reason, is still bound to some ages old 32bit software, well - there are always VMs.

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Quoting: AzPThe most insane thing is that Steam is still 32-bits and a lot of games as well. That was a hard realization when I had to build all the 32 bit libraries that they depended on when disabling STEAM_RUNTIME on Gentoo.

Yeah, though I doubt it will remain like that for very long.

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So I can FINALLY fulfill my destiny and enslave nations with necromancy!

Wait a moment: Are those chickens at 0:18? :huh:

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Quoting: LungDrago

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: rkfgI think comeback mechanics are quite important in any more or less competitive game. Otherwise, why even play if you're clearly losing half into the round?

Exactly. You shouldn't.
If a game is lost, quit and try again in another match.
What point is there to artificially prolong the experience if there is no chance you could win anyway?

On the other hand, your approach leads to those kinds of games where an early advantage is unsurmountable, so one player gains the upper hand 10 minutes in and the other one just surrenders immediately. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and preferences. I, for one, don't care about games that keep ending at the start and no one gets to play the rest of the game ever, so I have to agree that comeback possibilities are an important part of a game.

Not really. Once you gain the upper hand, you also have to keep it. It is surprisingly easy to fall behind after a lead in a game like Civ. All you need to do is follow some good decisions with some bad ones. And if you are in the lead, the other players can and should start doing something about you - if they don't, it's all the more reason they deserve the loss.
And this is still Civ we're talking about. A lead early game doesn't mean too much. A lead by the end of the mid-game is pretty much a win, yeah. But by that time you already played a few hours, so I'd not call that missing out "the rest of the game".

All that a weak comeback mechanic would do in such a situation is to mask the reality of who will win this game. And if all you want to do is not to know who's in the lead to prevent quitting, well, just hide the scoreboard.

While a strong comeback mechanic would possibly change who will win, which as I wrote before would mean that the worse player could end up being the winner, which is just fully unacceptable on many levels.

Of course, all of that assumes roughly the same skill level among players.
If you want to play with some friends, and all are on entirely different skill levels, then

A) you shouldn't play against each other in the first place
B) you should play co-op
C) you can do setups so that it is 1vs2 or the best player has some handicap, etc.

All of those are based on player choices, not the game trying to enforce some kind of bad racing game rubber-banding.

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Quoting: ArdjeI've seen all battle royale movies. They rock.
The term LMS predates the movie a lot though, as it was already a standard gameplay feature in unreal tournament... I reckon quake2 and quakeworld (the quake1 version) already featured it as a mod. And it took a long time before the movie became a cult hit.
So yes, LMS has been the long time term for LMS style games until PUBG called LMS battle royale as if it is a completely new gametype.

The thing is that LMS typically stands for small maps and Unreal Tournament style fast-paced gameplay.
Battle Royale goes far beyond that, with certain survival elements, a large area, the distinctive narrowing of the survivable area, etc. It is also pretty slow as far as gameplay goes (honestly, 70% of the time you typically spend waiting around for something to happen, and then it all goes very quickly).

I mean, you still shoot the other guys and in the end there is just one (team) left standing, but I'd say it does deserve its own name for all the differences.
I'm actually kinda happy it has its own name. Otherwise, LMS would end up taking on a new meaning in the public eye and people would be surprised and angry if a new LMS came that was "only" like Unreal Tournament.

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Fan site :woot:

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