marelooke

I'm sure that was earlier in the year, when those new year's resolutions were still going strong

What both Microsoft and Sony "sell" is a walled garden, the hardware is usually sold at break even. Moreover modern consoles are basically purpose built PCs with a custom OS (not unlike a Macintosh, really), so difficulty in porting is mostly a thing because it benefits console makers. Meaning that if you ignore the hardware what MS and Sony do isn't particularly much different from what Epic is doing. People just accept it because consoles used to be purpose built devices with custom hardware, so the segmentation was somewhat justified. This hasn't really been the case for Xbox and PS for a while now but they've successfully managed to maintain that perception with the general public. EDIT: and I purposefully don't mention Nintendo because, afaict they still actually do build "real" consoles.

Well, "bought", is a big word, but these are new to my (Gog) library: Freespace 2 (giveaway) Stygian - Reign of the Old Ones (backed a long time ago)

Someone had to go with the "average Obsidianite"... Gets me a free way to regain sanity through...entertainment This was initial character creation, game hung after it so I had to start over, current character is Middle-Aged rather than Adult, everything else remained the same though.

tl;dr Bottom line, if you have a beefy CPU with a bunch of bored cores (so any CPU with more than 4 cores for Arkham Knight) then Denuvo is likely to have little impact on your average FPS, while it does have a minor but noticeable impact on loading times and very much impacts initial game game startup time. There's also a minor increase in memory usage with Denuvo. No testing has been done with any hardware that has 4 cores or less (like i5 CPUs which are quite common still), as far as I know, and no testing has been done where the impact on the CPU has been measured either (as an alternative to using CPUs with less cores). Long version: Article doesn't list hardware used for testing, that I could find, so I'm going to assume they tested on some top of the line system, which obviously is not representative of what most people actually use. They also don't say anything substantial about testing methodology This makes their conclusions essentially worthless, so we'll have to focus on the linked YouTube video (which had a Reddit thread that was quite interesting and included a lot of details about the testing methodology and its shortcomings, but at least gave us something tangible to work with). Since most current day games are GPU limited, not CPU limited (barring certain strategy games, especially the turn based ones), using top-of-the-line hardware is likely not going to result in a noticeable difference in FPS, so if they don't actually measure CPU load it's hard to tell how much extra work the CPU needs, or does not need, to do (and it obviously will need to do extra work, encryption is not free). Testing on something that's more reasonable (eg. a quad core system) would be interesting to see since most games are incapable of using more than 4 cores (and afaiu Arkham Knight is among those), so a system where Denuvo actually has to share a core with the game would, imho, be a lot more representative and indicative of the effect it has (or doesn't have) than a system where there's a bunch of cores that are doing sod all anyway. The tests in the YouTube video linked from the article video appear to have indicated that while the FPS differences were minor on midrange hardware they were there (which makes sense, given that on-the-fly decryption can't be a "free" operation and will become more detrimental the slower your CPU gets), moreover they indicated a massive decrease in initial game loading times without Denuvo (which isn't taken into account with the benchmark) and minor increases of in-game loading times. It should also be noted that he only ran tests 3 times and let the game "warm up" each time (iow, only the first run for each (Denuvo and non-Denuvo) was from a "cold" boot, while in successive runs data was already cached from prior runs, as indicated by the fact that only the first Denuvo run had the slow game startup). This kind of decreases the value of the results, small sample size and not rebooting between tests isn't ideal, I'd argue. Whether 1-3 fps is significant is debatable, it probably isn't on a high-end system (then again, it might well be more than this on a lower end system), whether the extra CPU cycles amount to anything tangible has, as far as I can tell, been tested by nobody, so far. There also wasn't any testing done with regards FPS stability (people noted on the video that the Denuvo version appeared to microstutter at points, can't say I noticed, but hey), if the Denuvo version results in less stable FPS then an average isn't necessarily going to really tell us much about the actual quality of the gameplay experience. Whether the increased initial loading times (40 or so extra seconds, iirc) are significant is also debatable, and probably up to the individual. I know slow loading games irritate me (hi Destiny 2), but ymmv. The slower in-game loading times might be worrying to people on lower end systems since Arkham Knight streams data while playing, so quick movement around the game world might lead to more issues with Denuvo enabled (like there used to be at the game's release)

Been a while, but I've been busy building stuff (surprise!) My humble abode: By night: I've sort of slowed down working on it (which was mostly decorating the inside and removing some of the leftover T1 stuff) because it, errr, kinda starts to break the server (collision won't properly load, stuff like that). Inside: As I've never lived in the jungle before I started looking for a good spot there, which I found, at least for a humbly sized vacation home. The building to the left, in the back is the actual house, to the right (with the gate) is the Derketo temple, and the main plaza with a well, and the housing for my, errr, employees, as well as basement access. Some more environment shots: It's Lemurian architecture, so lots of bling, especially with torches at night (rather hard to capture in a screenshot) There's a pretty sizeable cellar underneath that has most of the crafting stations (except for the blacksmith/smelter) Eventually shoe-horned in a wheel of pain (which there really isn't room for), but I might just build something nearby just to house a Map room and that Wheel of pain without having to expand this in rather ugly ways. Mod-wise this uses: Lemurian Architect (didn't see that one coming, did you? ) Glass Constructions and more (for the marble floors) Pythagoras Support Beams (to be able to have the giant maproom without having to pollute it with pillars in really inconvenient spots) Limestone Buildings, a Greek server mod (the light touches on the desert base; like the white inner circles on the towers and the main stairs) LBPROE - No NPC camps edition (because building without is just a royal pain) EDIT: poor Kush-ites, getting censored...

I'm not too far in (somewhere in the second major area, the Waterworks), unlike Legend of Grimrock you play as only one character. You have an exoskeleton that you wear which specializes in certain areas (tech, combat, tankyness. The choice is permanent too, fwiw) but as far as I can tell it doesn't lock you out of anything, relying entirely on gadgets if you're not tech specced appears like it would just be inefficient. Weapons are a mix of melee and ranged so far, haven't bothered with the ranged weapons yet so can't say anything about those, except that they require ammo. And then there's "gadgets" that sort of act like slottable spells since you can swap them in and out and they use a regenerating resource (stamina), these range from damage abilities to shields and there might be others as well. So far I've run into box pushing puzzles and timed button press puzzles and the pressure plate puzzles, so kinda Grimrock like. There's also pits to fall in (which I haven't, wonder if there's things below like there was in Grimrock, hmmmm) There are various upgrade trees that I haven't really looked at so far as I'm trying to figure out my playstyle. But so far it feels very much like steampunk Legends of Grimrock 1. Which is good, I feel, as my Grimrock 2 playthrough kinda fizzled out.

Been playing some Vaporum, feels like the first Grimrock, but steampunk, so far. Also got Elite: Dangerous because it was on sale and I got curious. Game insists on ignoring my keyboard settings and instead setting the layout based on my locale (which I verified by changing my locale, and I don't even have the layout it insists on installed). Not sure if I can be bothered dealing with that level of wilful incompetence so I might just refund it (which would be my first refund ever on Steam). Game is complex enough that having to deal with the keyboard mapping not matching my keyboard is not something I care to deal with (tutorial was interesting...) and messing up my locale settings because of this isn't something I fancy dealing with either. How hard is it to just use the system keyboard layout. Ugh.

I doubt it will destroy Steam, despite you wishing it so. It will, however impact other digital storefronts as well if this is upheld.

Never owned a console, never been good playing most things with controllers either (might be some correlation there) and MS thankfully releases through the Windows Store as well so the few games I care about (aka Forza) I can get that way as well nowadays. Even better now that some things have been coming to Steam as well, because, honestly, the Windows Store isn't exactly good.

It apparently also retroactively turns GTA V into a always-online game, even for the single player. This is supposedly a bug. Also appears to make the game unplayable on Linux through Proton at this time.

Yes, yes it is. My Witcher 3 playthrough has been dragging on since its release. Not sure why but it doesn't seem to drive me forward. When I do play it it's a case of "Whoa, is it that late already?" but once I quit the game I feel no urge to pick it up again. Kinda weird. Anyway, so far I've only ever had to do sections as Ciri, which wasn't bad at all, and none of those have been particularly long.

Hmm.. (gets interesting around halfway), or you can just read the Polygon article. The parts about technical issues are rather interesting as the game is supposed to be out rather soon...

Dragon Knight Saga was pretty fun. Don't remember the inventory being that much of a pain though. Of course, it's been a while since that was released, wonder if they're every going to finish up that story someday. But I guess they're too busy messing with cult classics to care anymore.

Hmm, must've been the realm, honestly. I've only really had one negative experience pre-LFG and that was some troll in Uldum. The reason I remember was because, well, it was like the only time. People throwing tantrums etc happened, but nothing eggregious, certainly not people randomly dropping groups. There were no blacklists (that I'm aware off), if players were big enough pricks people would just remember (and as long as one person in the party remembered, well that was usually that). I do remember people stating that Horde attracted a more mature audience early on, so that might have been a factor (cannot confirm nor deny whether that was true as I only made an alliance character on that same realm well into WotLK and by then that definitely no longer was the case) Btw, wasn't there a LFG? Just not an automated one? Or was that a TBC addition? In which case I might be talking about the wrong thing here, I abhorr the automated matchmaking thing (even if not cross realm), being able to advertise for a group without having to stick to one spot is definitely a good thing though.

It's mostly a social thing, honestly. I guess it's hard to grasp the impact it's introduction had if you weren't there when it was introduced. It's also hard to explain when you were there though I gave it a shot earlier in this thread, I believe. But one of the major disadvantages (aside from socializing) was realm reputation, if you were a jerk you'd just not be able to get into groups before long, so communities washed themselves of undesirables quite quickly. With a LFG you just get lumped in with randoms and if the Realm's local jerk joins you're stuck with him (or her). Conversely a good reputation would often just get you invited spontaneously. LFG also promotes group dropping as soon as something doesn't go perfectly, as you'd just queue again (especially if tank/healer) and you'd have a new group before long. Without LFG people are a lot more likely to actually help less experienced party members are finding replacements is a huge pain. This results in a lot less toxicity and people actually learning the ropes. Not to mention that some really get a reputation for mentoring (still miss ya, you shaman that patiently tought me the ropes during all those vanilla dungeon runs) It's kinda like being able to enter a dungeon immediately without having to actually walk there, which doesn't seem like a big deal, but these waits allowed for a whole lot of social interaction and community building (and fun and not-so-fun memories, the corpse run at Blackrock mountain was brutal, and people regularly got lost...). Note that I'm one of those people who is really, really, really, anxious to group up in games until I'm really, really, really, sure I know what I'm doing (which is a hard place to get to without actually, you know, doing it), so one would reasonably expect I'd be all for LFG. I am not (anymore).

Hmm, something seems off here, but I can't quite put my finger on it...

Were the expansions fixed in the Platinum collection? If I'm not mistaken they were standalone expansions and were not brought up to the same engine patch level as the base game, resulting in serious issues on newer systems. If they were sorted out I might be tempted to buy that game again so I can play the expansions without fear (no pun intended) of my PC locking up...

Your fault for picking the inferior faction Anyway, Inside Gaming actually got a reply from Blizzard on the topic of WoW classic, nothing really mind blowing there, but here anyway. Summary of couple of points I thought might be interesting: they try to not launch too many servers at once since realm community was important so they'd rather not have empty realms down the line. They do have spare capacity though that they will (and are) using to make sure there are always realms without queues available for new players that join. To me that seems to indicate they expect a sizeable community to stick around with classic. they'll roll out "new" features in the same order they were released (more details in the video) they'll decide based on the community response on how to proceed after they're done with "vanilla". Personally I suspect "adding" TBC might be likely (since that expansion was WoW's high water mark and I'm sure some of the "pro" raiders of today would want to experience the pain that was Sunwell Plateau) *or* they could decide to continue classic down a more "hardcore" path and have a "soft reboot" of the game in an alternate timeline. Realistically I'd expect that either as a continuation of vanilla or after TBC (*if* that is in the cards at all). Given the reception of the latest expansion and the ever decreasing playerbase (WoW even lost their number one spot to Final Fantasy based on leaked numbers) this might be a great opportunity for Blizzard to avoid some of the mistakes they made with "regular" WoW, and make new ones instead Assuming the popularity of classic holds up, of course...

Well, Warframe released a new, err, Warframe, so messing around with that. Also played around a (very little) bit with the Wasteland 3 alpha, combat has a very XCOM feel to it, not yet sure if I dig it. I should note that many things were locked (like skills etc) and that it definitely will need quite the optimization pass before release (which is sort of to be expected with an alpha).

I'm not so sure, from talking to guildies in Guild Wars 2 quite a few people are tired of trash being just inconsequential filler fluff between bosses, and not posing any challenge at all. And quite a few people would enjoy "pulling" as a tank to be an art again, not to mention that less AOE spam and more CC weren't exactly considered bad things either (each class having ridiculous amounts of very effective AoE was a WotLK addition, if I remember correctly). So some more focus back on environmental awareness and actually playing as a team (CC/aggro mechanics) definitely resonated by younger gamers. (on that note, it's slightly ironic that when I started playing WoW I was the youngster of the guild and now I'm pretty much the oldest, heh) So yeah, while classic WoW might be missing quite a few things that younger gamers might find desirable I think that the lack of challenge or a meaningful leveling experience offered by (most) current MMOs is definitely something that's being felt, and not only by us old-farts that were around "back in the days" and are suffering a severe about of nostalgia now. Personally I'm trying to stay the hell away from classic as I kinda do have a tad more responsibilities now so getting ridiculously addicted again is probably a bad idea. But I find it interesting how well it is doing, even with younger gamers. Maybe Blizzard and/or other MMO devs will revisit some of the "streamlining" they've been doing over the years if the success of classic holds up. One can only hope.

Buffing random people was pretty common during TBC, at least on my realm (Wildhammer-EU), as was conjuring water for thirsty Paladins

Well, given that it's one of the games I regularly play a session of I figured I might as well share whatever I was running when I last logged out:

I am not building a new base in Conan Exiles. And I can stop whenever I want! (also, I mean, only, Destiny 2 since the current event allows me to rather quickly catch up gearwise with my characters)

Halo Infinite will deliver an "AAA player investment experience", which, as far as I can tell is MS-speak for "a sense of pride an accomplishment". Guess selling people subscription services wasn't enough for Microsoft after all.