I don't play many roguelikes, but from what I see it looks to be a genre that is really well-served in Linux.

I should give a good try to Bionic Dues someday (it's been sitting on my Steam library for a while). Even though it is a bit outside my usual interests, Arcen Games always makes stuff that is absolutely unique and mixes a lot of different ideas and genres (even if sometimes a bit wonky). A shame they had to downsize a lot (as of now I think it is only Chris, with a few old staff freelancing once in a while).

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Well, what I really think is "finally". It has taken too long before someone (well, someone powerful) called bullshit on the utterly stupid system of "you didn't really buy the stuff you wanted to buy, just a license to use it, so we can control everything you do with it including selling it". I don't expect this to radically change things, but if it stands it might move us a little towards a future where EULAs and TOS are more reasonable (or even towards less abusive copyright!).

Is it going to be hard to adapt to this? Certainly. But all business before have survived this strange power of letting people sell their old stuff, it will work. People sold books they already read, things they only used once, things they didn't use, etc. "But digital stuff is different, you can create copies easily and it doesn't degrade and etc". Which means you don't need limited print runs, inventory space, logistics, etc. You can offer unlimited supply of the same product forever for close to zero cost. People already compete with piracy that costs nothing, it won't be used games that will destroy the industry. Yes, some people stand to lose at least a little (in particular the big names, that will likely have bigger secondary markets), but that's the way of it. The status quo isn't good either.

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I have not played EU4 in a while (and waiting for Imperator to go on sale, despite having an unusually positive view of it) so I haven't tested the launcher. But it seems like it was released a bit rushed? Last I tried it was a standalone beta that could install Stellaris and it worked but was a bit barebones, and obviously a work in progress. I was actually quite happy they had released a working beta for Linux so early. But the actual release (with a much larger install base) seems buggy even for Windows...

I also had a shower thought recently that the big issue with recent games isn't spurious launchers, but spurious main menus. We already have launchers that allow us to select mods, load saves directly, change settings (even better, before loading the main software where those will apply so no restarting), and so on. Having an in-game main menu looks like a waste. (I was thinking particularly about what @Mal mentioned, that EU4 already needs to reopen the game to load saves)

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Quoting: MalSo it is possible to skip the launcher? Very good news! I hate launchers. I can't understand why executives waste hundreds of manhours into "features" that detract value from their products.

Regarding the update, it's a small one. The big one will arrive later this year. Apparently at Paradox they started to listen and decided to make only a single DLC this year in order to focus on fixing the game. Much to my satisfaction.

In this case, the launcher will eventually allow for better mod management and mods across various stores (instead of being tied to the Steam workshop), among other things.

Being more cynical, it is easy to understand: while it creates some inconvenience for users, it is pretty valuable as a marketing tool.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyThey should hire a couple of library people. We know how to do searches. And subject headings.

Ha, as if there was an entire area where people learned how to catalogue media. Next you will tell me it has existed for longer than computers themselves, and that it is named "library" like the game collection on Steam.

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Quoting: Doc AngeloThe dynamic ones sound interesting, but I'm not sure if these are actually useful. I already have a "Walking Simulator" category, but it would be of course kinda nice to not have to put a new game manually there. But... using the store tag "Walking Simulator" ends up with all kinds of games... even Skyrim, which is of course a joke of the community. This just can't work out. The other options were not really useful, especially "genres".

Yeah, steam tags always were a huge mess. The top selling "Strategy" games are... Counter Strike and a bunch of other shooters. But not to be outdone, Hearts of Iron 4 and several strategy games have the Action tag. RPG is applied to pretty much everything, but somehow misses some very normal RPGs. Which have the Puzzle tag because of some dungeon puzzles, but then some actual hardcore puzzle games are tagged only under Strategy. Look, I know that genres are simplifications and many games are in a gray area... but there has to be a better way.

Frankly, improving how games are tagged is a huge thing they could do to improve discoverability, especially if they are planning on incorporating some form of Deep Dive.

Quoting: LakortaI agree with eldaking. Platform and negative filters would be nice, also unless I missed it there's no OR filter

Yeah, was noticing it... filters are always cumulative, so it is impossible to create a category that combines two tags. I can select games that are both action rpgs and jrpgs, but not all games that are either...

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Trying it now, so far liking it a lot.

It does look better, it presents way more useful information (What's New had a really good selection), showing recently played games is a good idea, some convenient shortcut buttons, better sorting and collapsing and filtering, and you can add "shelves" to list a few categories.

For each game, it finally shows information about the game itself without going to the store; it also gives more emphasis to useful things like the workshop, guides and your achievements and replaces the horrible feed of random news with your/your friends' activity and community content.
As for collections, the new way to categorize games, huge improvements. You can now edit a category itself, rename it or delete it without going to each game and replacing it. The dynamic collections look to work alright, and you can manually override individual games (remove a game added automatically or add one that was missed).

Now, what I wish was better. It could load images a bit faster, probably a matter of caching more content. It could be more customizable, especially in regards to community content allowing us to filter what exactly we want to see (or just disable all "social" content altogether). I wish search/dynamic collections had more options, most especially negative filters (Strategy games that are not RTS, for example) and perhaps "not in another collection already". Also, perhaps a few interesting presets for collections? And finally, non-Steam games look quite bleak, I hope there is some solution or that (a way to easily download a template for a game or something like that).

Oh, and a glaring omission is the lack of operating system filtering in the library... I can't filter by games that support Linux at all (natively, through SteamPlay, either or both). If there is this option I can't find it.

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Quoting: 14

Quoting: eldaking...I absolutely don't want Linux software installation as a whole to depend on a single company and their closed service.

I completely agree with this!

Quoting: eldakingIt also promotes proprietary software and does a lot of things for the convenience of developers/maintainers at the cost of disadvantages for end-users, which is not exactly good.

Being nit-picky here, but the disadvantages to end-users I think you're talking about probably wouldn't be realized by them, only the superusers and nerds. The convenience and simplicity would only feel like an advantage to the layman I think.

Sure, most non-techie users aren't aware of the issues, or don't know of the alternatives. I don't think this means they aren't affected or wouldn't care if they knew... many of the advantages of the system for the end-user, like sandboxing, wouldn't be visible either.

From a simplicity/convenience (for users) point of view, I think a great GUI frontend for apt would be the best thing they could make. Display a curated selection of software that is easy to find and to understand and just install it normally.

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Quoting: 14The backend is not agnostic; I see your point. The distributable product is, though. After reading the entire interview, it sounds like they're making Steam for apps. As long as app publishers don't exclusively build Snaps akin to game publishers choosing Epic, I don't see much of a problem with what Ubuntu is doing. As long as we all have free choice and the choices are pretty equal, I think the Snap Store will be a good option for users that don't use computers as a hobby but are running Linux.

I see a big issue with promoting a "solution" to distributing software across all distros that doesn't try to work together with other distros at all, but rather tries to retain control over the entire thing. Feels more like a takeover than a contribution. And it relies on proprietary software, which is enough reason to prefer other alternatives and bonkers for the makers of a popular distro. It is way too closed and centralized - I absolutely don't want Linux software installation as a whole to depend on a single company and their closed service. So I feel that any software that chooses to use snap instead of other solutions is a loss.

It also promotes proprietary software and does a lot of things for the convenience of developers/maintainers at the cost of disadvantages for end-users, which is not exactly good.

I mean, it is not the end of the world, but there are too many issues for me to see it as a step forward... in particular when there are other efforts that don't have those issues.

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Quoting: 14Link to interview?

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-canonical-views-the-snap-ecosystem-as-a-compelling-distribution-agnostic-solution/ [External Link]

It is actually defending snaps and its "advantages", but I was still horrified because I didn't know about the issues in the first place. I was like "wait, Canonical wants to control distribution of snaps for all distros and calls that 'agnostic'? The backend is proprietary?"

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