Zoraptor

That's literally impossible, since EGS didn't exist when they started working on TOW- Fortnite hadn't even been released, there was no money cow. EGS' aggressive push only started a few months ago.

Dear Star Trek Discovery, There is no dramatic tension from threatening to kill characters when you can't even leave the ones you do kill dead. And no, someone with a dozen lines across the entire run (apart from the ep they die in of course) dying is not a substitute even if you hold a 15 minute funeral for them next ep.

It's an 'assault rifle' feature like, uh, semi automatic fire. If there's one thing I thought was really stupid about our PM's presentation on the law changes it was her constantly referring to assault rifles, because if she really wanted people to hand them in voluntarily the worse thing she could do is look like a clueless townie trying to appeal to the fears of people who don't own the weapons in question instead of addressing those who do. I'd also have to say that having read the local paper yesterday I have a fair bit more sympathy for Gromnir getting things wrong, they managed to say that all s/a weapons apart from .22 had been banned in 3 separate articles. It takes 30 seconds to read the police release on the matter, and they get them emailed to them automatically but getting it right is far too much work it seems. OTOH, 'silencers' look scary but aren't banned here. Guess, technically, they make a gun safer since they reduce muzzle velocity but I'm not entirely sure that's the reasoning used.

FPS OFF! No, no, not jealous of a 2080Ti at all. Oh well, can't all be positives news. Still likely to preorder it anyway.

It's definately not a split of revenue, when Private Division is funding the project. It would be very unlikely to be a revenue split until such time as PD's initial investment is recouped at least, after that some sort of revenue split (or bonus) is more likely. There's still as much evidence of that as there is of Huawei spying- ie none. Frankly I'm starting to suspect there's more than a whiff of Yellow Peril racism in both accusations, since both accusations are made sans any evidence. in the Huawei case the problem is far more likely to be a lack of NSA spying built in rather than CCP spying being present.

That's Endorsed License Required. Specifically it requires B (or C) cat. That's can only be legally fired at pistol clubs by members of said clubs (B class) and can be owned but may not be fired (C class; ie registered collectors). Both license endorsement and buying the gun is allowed on a case by case basis. They 100% aren't available to the general public and aren't available to hunters. The vast majority of pistols owned are in Olympic classes as that is just about the only reason accepted for owning them. There are other exceptions too, Bill Clinton's Secret Service detachment was given B and E cat exemptions when they were here for APEC, for example. The bunny thing is a volume issue, as it is with goats/ pigs/ deer etc. In some places the rabbit cull is 200/day per farm as they have very limited natural predators (and no myxomatosis either), deer, pigs, goats etc have no natural or introduced predators at all. While I'm not familiar much with the Dakotas I'd be confident the situation isn't even slightly similar.

You really are totally ignorant, aren't you? You literally don't have a clue what you're talking about. Most important first: I don't claim the gunman could have been tackled, he literally was- twice. Second time finished the spree as he lost his gun and drove off. The first one can be seen- allegedly- on the video the gunman filmed himself on his GoPro and- allegedly since I cannot legally view it and wouldn't anyway- involved him being charged while reloading and him getting the mag in quickly enough to stop the guy. Fewer bullets in the mag or a slower reload and he would have been stopped there and then. Note again: that video, the one shot by the actual Christchurch gunman as he was shooting, is the one I cannot legally watch. I can watch irrelevant videos about revolvers as much as I want to. Your experience shooting rodents and rabbits 6500 miles away in the Dakotas is irrelevant, they aren't New Zealand and the situation is different; experts here disagree with you, even people who would really rather like to ban s/a guns if it were practical- like our PM and our police- disagree with you and they disagree with you because you're wrong. The great irony is that you've been complaining about others being narcissists and pontificating about the situation in the US while you're trying to tell us how things really stand here, from 5000 miles away because of... your personal experience and weapons that haven't been legal here since before most of the population was born. Can't really get much more ignorant and narcissist than that if you were trying to be ironic. Your revolver example is irrelevant. They're illegal here, the gunman didn't use one, might as well show artillery reloading it would be as relevant. Now, if you could prove that an AR15 with detachable mags has a similar reload speed and overall rof to something which isn't banned then you might have a point. Please, feel free to provide that evidence, but I won't be holding my breath waiting. Lever action rifles with 15+ rounds are also illegal here, so irrelevant. Amazingly, they managed to largely avoid the pointless platitudes and actions for action's sake, except for constantly referring to 'assault rifles' which were already banned anyway; and I'm not a fan of the process used or shortening public feedback heh, 'clips'. Thanks, self proclaimed gun expert.

You don't know what you are talking about: 1) Steam has DRM-free games: https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games 2) It is publishers who push the DRM crap, and they do it on EGS as well Metro Exodus for example uses Denuvo: https://www.epicgames.com/store/de/product/metro-exodus/home There is only one store that is arguably better in regards to DRM and that's GOG[1]. This is also why so few AAA titles are available there. Go figure. 3) You don't own EGS-Games, you are merely granted a license. Like you said, basically "renting": https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/eula 4) Total War, Bethesda Games titles Civ etc. are not bought exclusives. They aren't games Valve snatched away from other platforms at the eleventh hour. Those games were published on Steam because that's where the players are. [1] Even GOG has games with DRM'd multiplayer: https://www.gog.com/forum/star_wars_battlefront_ii/i_have_had_enough_of_gogs_pushing_of_their_drm_platform/page1 1) If there are DRM free games on Steam, there are also DRM free games on EGS. In reality neither is DRM free (and no, a fan wiki does not count for anything) as both require a proprietary app for download and install; and you can't just decide to ignore that form of DRM because you like Steam. And no Galaxy ain't DRM since it's optional and all you need for GOG is a browser and an account. 2) GOG is inarguably better than steam, even if you go by the incorrect definition of DRM free only about 1 in 20 Steam games don't require steam running- 99.95% of GOG games don't require Galaxy (with the one exception being always online by its nature). Centralised MP makes drm irrelevant, as you have to be online and connected to the company's servers, that's just how it works- ie you cannot be offline to play centralised MP. DRM on LAN or direct connection etc would be a valid complaint though. 3) You own games on EGS exactly as much as you own them on Steam, ie you don't. It's the same everywhere, hence End User License Agreement rather than End User Ownership Agreement. In some cases the licensing cannot be enforced- physical media, GOG installer downloads, local law saying something is a good not a service- but you only own them practically, not legally. 4) They are induced exclusives, they're just bought in kind rather than as a guaranteed minimum sale figure. All those 'free' features steam offers are inducements to exclusivity every bit as much as a lump sum, they're just a different approach to it.

Yeah, in N/S Dakota. So far as I am aware neither is in New Zealand and oddly enough there are differences between there and here. Your self proclaimed expertise does not trump the expertise of actual experts, in New Zealand. Our pest density is simply far higher than in the US, and we have a near absolute need to control them since most lack any natural predators. And you'd again be just plain wrong. The guy got tackled while reloading, if he'd been slower or if he'd had fewer bullets loaded he'd have been stopped then and there, and that's addressed by a mag ban. That's not some abstract 'Gromnir think' situation, that's what actually happened in the mosque shooting. [belated edit: it's illegal to view the gunman's video here, I haven't and wouldn't advise anyone else to either]

Like most I've not used EGS, but from observation some when it comes to DRM it's very much a steam clone. Some titles can be run without the launcher at all (once the initial download/ install drm stuff is done) while others effectively require always online and the launcher to be present- it's on a title by title basis. No offline installs or separate installer files. (Unofficially, uwp support may come to win7 as DX12 did, but don't hold me to it. It's only a rumour albeit one that makes sense given HaloMCC)

It's short term pain, no doubt. But I view it similarly to the backlash that CDPR experienced when they announced that Cyberpunk2077, previously marketed as having a choice between third and first person perspective, would instead be all first person. There was a backlash. A large one. Their forums were pretty unpleasant. But CDPR representatives were there taking the heat, explaining their reasoning and I suspect people walked away feeling that they had at least been heard and their concerns listened to. Even if their decisions could not be changed at this point, just the act of making the effort goes a long way. That's not the same situation though, since CDPR both made the 1st person in C2077 decision and was also explaining it. Here two different companies are involved, and you want the one that didn't make the decision to explain it- which may not even be possible, depending on what the publishing contract says. It's extremely unlikely that Obsidian is anything less than extremely disappointed in the situation, but it would be very difficult for them to say that publicly.

dear lord. just like wod stalinism. nevertheless, thanks for clarification. largely leaves our post unchanged however. bear hunters would never have been affected by an sa ban regardless. vermin hunters woulda' remained unhampered. the added protection from banning some class o' semi-autos and ar-15s *snort* does nothing to enhance protections o' folks from future mosque assaults. HA! Good Fun! Typical Grom. Now you're an expert on pest control in New Zealand. There is no blanket ban on s/a because... they're essential to pest control, here. That is, literally, the reason given for a non blanket ban. But sure, you know best. No doubt you can provide another link from some ill informed US website as justification for your ignorance, I'll just go watch New Zealand's PM, Police Minister and head of the Police literally stating the reasoning on live TV. As for the mosque attacks, if you'd paid the slightest bit of attention there you'd know that if the gunman hadn't been able to quick switch magazines he'd have been taken down, very quickly. No swappable mag s/a AK models and AR15 being available and no high capacity mags does protect against further attacks. It won't 100% prevent them- nothing practical can- but it certainly protects from them.

Had steam cut prices from their own pocket... maybe publishers wouldn't be queuing up to leave? Publishers set prices in any case, that's always the excuse when Steam 'has' to implement regional pricing or whatever. Amazing how many easily reversible arguments there are. Legally all that is required is significant market control, not 100% control. As mentioned previous, monopsony is the more accurate term, but most aren't familiar with it and in common usage Steam has a monopoly. Companies usually get done for monopolistic behaviour rather than being monopolies anyway, most MS or Google products done for monopoly behaviour aren't literal monopolies since there are alternatives. If that's your definition we don't have competition now either, since most games are steam exclusive. For some reason those don't get cyber Inghimasi waging ejihad on them though. And if that data is private and important then steam ought to be encrypting it rather than leaving it exposed. If it's a concern because EGS reads it then it's a concern that it's there in the first place as any program could read it. Just another steam issue they've never got around to fixing, I guess. lol

What exactly were you expecting? They're not going to say "We all hate EGS here at Obsidian, please don't buy our game there" even if that was what they thought.

We haven't. Please, feel free to argue the toss with the New Zealand Police though. TL/DR: s/a .22 up to 15 round capacity, still legal. Any s/a calibre gun below .50/ 12.7mm (iirc) and up to 5 shot internal magazine, still legal. What they have banned are semi autos that looks like an AK or AR15 with detachable magazines, similar style shotguns, high capacity mags, and E cat licensing is going. If you're going to opine on other country's gun laws, you could at least get it right. About the only thing I take issue with is labeling the banned guns 'assault rifles' repeatedly to be emotive, and passing the law in council rather than after a proper process.

Well, realistically the EGS is just a rebranded Fortnite launcher, so it's not exactly as "new" as they want you to believe. They just changed the name and threw it out there without putting in the effort to add even the most basic of features. That they are now adding those at a rapid pace might be nice, but until the features are out there they don't exist. If anything it only shows how low effort the entire thing was (putting in the effort ahead of time wouldn't exactly have bankrupted them) and how contemptuously they view their customers. Granted, that's not just Epic, but customers are getting tired of the "we will fix it later, promise" attitude, and yes "incomplete" is, imho, a form of "broken" and also something that needs "fixing". No Man's Sky and Anthem both released technically OK(-ish), but they still needed a "roadmap" to get to a usable, or at least desirable, state, and so does the EGS. Finish your product before releasing it, it's not hard, especially not when you sit on such stupidly high piles of money that they would make Smaug drool. tl;dr can be summed up by a quote from the most tactful developer ever: "Talk is cheap. Show me the code." (or the product, in this instance) Uh, that's also a pretty much 100% accurate description of Steam's product history too. the greater g... Cursed post. People should be paying +75% to bask in the glory of Elex.

At this point it would be a fairly major surprise if there weren't one.

Phoenix Point would be a loss, and probably the largest of the ES 'exclusives' announced so far, but its GOG keys wouldn't be since GOG gets nothing from them financially. Indies don't sell much in general, but PP hits a lot of targets in GOG's user base. Any A or greater class titles, default is no immediate GOG release anyway with very very few exceptions. Last one might actually be Witcher 3, and that was CDPR's own title. So there was never a realistic possibility of TOW being on GOG day 1. 2k has never done that, and the very decision to make put it on ES 'exclusively' shows the likelihood of it being on GOG was small with a 2k affiliate publishing. 2k does release on GOG, but typically with a 5 (!) year delay such that their next release is likely to be either Civ5 or Bioshock Infinite. While they shouldn't be doing that it's mostly a "Origin is reading my medical files" type beat up. If it's genuinely private data then Steam ought to encrypt it, that's basic security. It really isn't. A developer goes to a publisher, gets paid by contract for a game, and then the money from the game goes to the publisher. The dev may get a share of sales but they may not, or they may get a share of sales/ proceeds above a break even point for the publisher, or they may (or may not, heh) get bonuses for good performance either critically or in terms of sales. In most cases though if a developer is getting their funding from customers it's because they're also the publisher; and that isn't the case here. If we don't define Steam's position as monopolistic we certainly can't define ES as it either though- TOW and most of their other exclusives are on Windows Store too, after all. Valve has tried to get a monopsony situation rather than a monopoly one, technically speaking.

This is another one of those definition things. Decisions on distribution and publishing- where a game is sold and for how much etc- are made by the distributor or publisher. That's literally why they're called the distributor/ publisher. They aren't made by the developer unless the developer and publisher are the same entity, which is not the case here. In some cases the developer may have a say, if they have enough influence, but it's unlikely that's the case here due to the MS purchase- the ultimate threat Obsidian could make would be to take the IP elsewhere for sequels, and they've already gone elsewhere (ie MS). So far as we know, and the default answer, is that Obsidian as developer had no meaningful influence on a decision to go to ES. The better question would be what publishers want from ES- and the answer to that is basically money. A guaranteed minimum sale amount gives financial security and mitigates risks such as ignoring steam.

Private Division/ 2k makes the decisions on publishing, being the publisher. There's nothing Obs can do about it, indeed we have no idea when they were even informed. The amount of revenue GOG is going to get from TOW over the next year is exactly the same now as it was yesterday- zero dollars. As a game published by a 2k subsidiary it was never a day 1 release on GOG. The amount of money GOG would have got from the Quantic Dreams games announced would also have been zero since they wouldn't have been day 1 releases there either. If anything it's good for GOG since their main competitor is Steam, and this decision raises the chance of them getting titles at the same time as steam from 0% to more than 0%.

There is no such thing as Steam exclusive unless it's a Valve's own game. What are you talking about? Steam never stops publishers to go sell their games on other digital platforms, Epic games do. If the publishers don't want to sell on other platform other than Steam, does valve suppose to force them to sell on GoG or anything? That isn't what exclusive means though. If you have to use steam to get/ play the game it is steam exclusive as... that's the definition of exclusive. What you and others are complaining about are paid exclusives, which is a subset of/ reason for exclusivity, not exclusivity itself. Even then steam does offer multiple in kind inducements for exclusivity, they just don't offer sales guarantees (well, so far as we know). But the exclusive designation doesn't include TOW however you define it as it isn't an ES exclusive since it will be on Windows Store too. Do you really want me to list all the loss leaders Valve employs to get market share? It will take a while.

People might just have to get over the belief that exclusives are inherently bad. They aren't, and if they make financial sense they'll continue to happen. Owning the IP is irrelevant here though. Obsidian is now owned by MS, so MS own the IP and will be the publisher of the sequels if there's no prior agreement with PD about sequels. If it's written into the contract that PD publishes the sequels instead then owning the IP is also irrelevant as PD already has the rights so you cannot threaten to go elsewhere. Either way there's no leverage from it. That leaves their leverage as Feargus packing a sad about it to PD management and to be fair, that's not much leverage. Yeah, that's kind of funny. Steam is the behemoth of the pc gaming world, not a plucky underdog being beaten up unfairly. Maybe if their terms were better fewer pubs would be willing to leave them, but so far their net response seems to be to... remove negative reviews about drm and eula. Closest to payment would probably be the BIS bail out. They don't need to offer money though, as the major player the leverage of declining access to their store is more than enough if they wanted to force exclusives. OK, to deal with the points in order. Technically Steam is a monopsony, not a monopoly; but you don't have to have 100% market share to be a monopoly in the legal sense- you just need significant market distortion. Since for a monopoly control of the market is all that is required if GMG or whatever sell steam keys steam still controls the market since they can void the keys or deseller other stores, and if there's nowhere else to get the game but from steam's servers then it's steam exclusive because, well, it's only able to be got from steam and that's the definition of exclusive. You will probably be able to buy ES game keys at some point, if that's a positive. If you don't want another launcher and are on win10 you can use the windows store, it's default installed and you can't get rid of it (nor mute it without difficulty, even on the corporate Win10 I'm on). I wouldn't personally, but it avoids the need for extra software.

For me, the difference is that from Steam's perspective, there is no such thing as "Steam exclusives". Steam does not offer exclusivity deals: Valve is perfectly fine with publishers also selling their games on GOG, Humble Bundle, their own service, the Microsoft Store, etc. Eh, kind of. Those steam features everyone cites as being so great are there so that there's lock in, that's their exclusivity deal equivalent. If you're using steamworks for MP, workshop for mods and similar that's the exclusivity driver; and because it's extra work to implement alternatives and said work costs money, it's an in kind incentive for exclusivity. Sure, they're 'optional', but in exactly the same way accepting a minimum sales deal from Epic is optional, if you think it's a net benefit to you you do it, if it isn't you don't. It's dressed up as being extra features but they're steam exclusive extra features. That's the technique Gabe learned at Microsoft from their three Es (specifically, Extend) policy on monopolisation. Standover tactics using their market share as leverage to get a pub to drop their steam equivalent... well that isn't provable, but I'm about 90% sure it happened at least once, and was far worse than anything Epic is accused of doing. Sure they do, you just don't want to call them that because exclusives are anti consumer and you like Steam. Can I get HL2 without using Steam? No. Can I get Civ6 without using Steam? No. They're steam exclusives. QED. Doesn't matter that I could buy a key for Civ6 from GMG or whatever, the sale is finalised when you get your product, and that is exclusively on steam. Ergo, it's an exclusive. Funny thing is of course that the ES deal isn't exclusive, since Windows Store will sell it too.

Eh, the only person with a clear misapprehension was you because you let your desire for a zinger overcome the requirement for comprehending what you read- and that unfortunately hasn't been cleared up at all. You had an explanation of why you were wrong, I lack the, hmm, narcissism to try and explain again because you're either incapable of or unwilling to understand why you're wrong. Which is a repeating pattern in pretty much every argument you have with anyone.

Usually the purple equipment is only a level equivalent behind Legendary gear anyway, too. The set bonuses can be nice- the Immortal set regen on death one in particular as it makes things like that obnoxious mob summoning pig a lot lot less obnoxious- but that's the only one I'd rate as near essential having tried 3 or so. I'm finding no real problem in upgrading if I want if i recycle gear instead of selling it. OTOH I have a bunch of randomly acquired orichalcum (?) and the stuff you can buy with it is worse than what I already have, and the last few boat upgrades are loltastic in their monetary and resource requirements.