DdCno1

joined 1 year ago
[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Fuck, he's old.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 8 points 21 hours ago (4 children)

Bioware is well ahead of you. Haven't most of their romanceable NPCs been bisexual for ages now?

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 8 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

use eye tracking to make the horror better

Imagine a VR game with monsters that always stay in your periphery.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 3 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Ready or Not is a thing and quite popular, although I haven't tried it myself. As far as I know, it's the closest to the old SWAT games and not exactly a low-budget Indie title. Similarly, covering the military side of things, there's Six Days in Fallujah, which is considerably more aggressive and action-heavy than the titles of old, but similarly punishing.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The founding fathers are also rolling in their graves, because women and people of color, hell, even men without property can vote (for now). Quit putting these slave owners on a pedestal.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There is one crucial difference between image editing software like Photshop and Gimp vs. 3D software suites like Maya and Blender: My hypothesis is (and feel free to pick this apart) that you can totally teach yourself to use the former rather competently without any outside help, not even documentation and tutorials, but I would argue that this is nearly impossible with the latter due to their far greater complexity. This in turn means that people will look up guides and tutorials and learn the idiosyncratic UI patterns that way, which is why Blender with its extremely nonstandard controls managed to gain a foothold far beyond the broke hobbyist sphere.

Thanks for gently letting me down on RISC OS. I guessed that there wasn't much going on with it, but I wanted to be sure.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As long as a majority of Americans see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, Sanders' economic policies have less mass appeal and offer more opportunities for attack ads than you think. It needs to be stressed that people voted for Trump not just because he's a loud-mouthed racist and sexist and they like that, but also because he inherited the (irrational) image of Republicans being better for the economy.

Public opinion on Israel was, even among college kids, very different in 2016, before the current wave of massed anti-Israel propaganda from Russian, Chinese and Iranian bot farms sweeping over social media - and even now most voters (as in: people who actually vote) are still more pro-Israel than pro-Palestine (which makes sense, given how important of a partner Israel is to the US) - and it's still not high on the list of priorities for most, not even remotely high enough to be mentioned side-by-side with economic policy, which is and almost always has been the number one priority.

where the majority of people feel very differently than the people in DC and on the news do

Are you saying that the polls are completely wrong? What are you basing the idea on that the "majority of the people" (reminder: the majority of voters just elected Trump - he actually got the popular vote this time, which is deeply, deeply troubling) have left-leaning positions on the economy and Israel?

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 2 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Forks to do this have come and gone.

Oh, absolutely. None of them have any momentum and suffer from 1) long-time Gimp users usually not caring 2) former or present Photoshop users (in the case of PS imitations) rarely hearing about them and 3) those that do being hesitant to commit to them due to both their often half-baked nature and what you said (and also no plugin support, which is one of those things that binds people to Adobe, often against their will).

This is part of a thing with open source, it’s not possible to force something on the developers.

Most open source projects are firmly in the hands of rather conservative people who are doing their thing and really don't care about what people think. I've seen it often enough. I'm essentially saying the same thing as you do, but less kindly. It at least partially explains why so many projects are suffering from severely outdated UI designs, both in good and bad ways. Maybe it's the lack of economic pressure and competition too, especially with programs like Gimp that aren't actually competing with commercial tools, even though some of them could if there was enough motivation.

I am totally a freak in my software background

You've piqued my curiosity though. Risc OS is one of few operating systems of note I've never actually tried (and I have tried some freaky stuff - remember BeOS?). Let's say I wanted to give it a go today (in a VM) would you recommend it and if you do, which of the two (Open or not) should I choose? What can you actually do with it today?

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 3 points 1 day ago (5 children)

You have to admit though that your background is quite unusual. I would assume that there are far more people looking for a free alternative to Photoshop after having used Photoshop for a long time (especially in the wake of the switch to a subscription model, but even earlier when prices were increased) instead of coming from an OS and using tools written for an OS that even among techies are extremely niche.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Eh, depends. Windows? Sure, it's highly inconsistent. Their console UIs? Waste of screen space. Office though? It's so far ahead of Libre Office, it's not even funny - and I'm saying this as someone who was using Open and Libre Office for decades. Both feel positively ancient by comparison and anything more complex than basic document formatting (which also works far better in MS Office) is a chore.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 2 points 2 days ago (7 children)

Coming from Photoshop 6 (which came out in 2000), Gimp is still playing catch up with that ancient program in terms of basic usability.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 4 points 2 days ago

These kinds of conversions have been around for decades. They usually don't survive big version jumps.

 

Previous video comparing visual differences (with a screenshot of the summary table and a very good comment on the whole topic by coyotino):

https://beehaw.org/post/16695979

Radeon 7900 XTX performance cost of good RT configurations at 4K:

https://i.imgur.com/x1qpE92.png

Geforce 4090 performance cost of good RT configurations at 4K:

https://i.imgur.com/kVhNWiY.png

Comparison:

https://i.imgur.com/gOJbFYM.png

 

Full text:

It's called Champions Tactics and it sure looks like...something.

Three years ago, Ubisoft promised it would start making its own blockchain games. Now it appears to have done it, having stealth-launched a full-blown web3 game last week called Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles on PC.

Champions Tactics is billed as a "PVP tactical RPG game on PC", and is both developed and published by Ubisoft. It involves collectible figurines of various warriors from the in-game fantasy world of Grimoria, which players assemble into squads of three and then battle in turn-based combat that looks oddly reminscent of Darkest Dungeon, of all things. It's not evident from the trailer that this is a web3 game at all, but a quick glance at the game's website or even its official X/Twitter page reveals this immediately.

The web3 comes into play as a method of collecting figurines to battle with. When you first start the game, you're given some temporary figurines to play with, but you'll eventually need to either purchase actual figurines, aka NFTs, from other players using either in-game gold or cryptocurrency, or craft your own using the "Forge" system which also requires either in-game currency or crypto. At the time of this piece, five days after launch, the in-game marketplace has figurines for sale ranging from around $7 to a whopping $63k for something called a "Swift Zealot". That said, just because a figurine is listed for that much doesn't mean people are paying that much. The next-highest listed champion currently runs around $25k, and while a handful more cost thousands the high-end stuff mostly appears to be capping around $335.

Champions Tactics is free to download, though you have to have a Ubisoft account and a supported blockchain wallet to actually play it. While it appears you can technically play the game entirely for free without ever engaging with NFTs using in-game currency, the viability of this strategy is likely going to be dependent on how the prices for actually powerful characters fluctuates over the game's lifespan. It's a PvP game, with no campaign and no PvE beyond a "Training" mode, so free-to-play players will inevitably be at the mercy of people willing to engage with the NFT marketplace and spend real money to buy or forge the absolute best champions — a real pay-to-win dilemma.

One other limiting factor in playing Champions Tactics is its age rating. Ubisoft lists the game as Adults Only, and restricts players who have not confirmed they are 18 or older from playing. Oddly, while Ubisoft is using the ESRB's rating category, Champions Tactics doesn't appear in the ESRB's online database listing all games with ratings and why those ratings were issued. IGN has reached out to the ESRB for comment and clarity on what's happening here.

Despite the fact that Ubisoft is doing basically exactly what it said it was going to do, it seems odd that the company is going all-in on web3 like this now. Whatever gamer enthusiasm for NFTs and blockchain there was in 2021 has died down significantly, with companies like Mojang and Valve outright rejecting them, EA backpedaling on an initial enthusiasm, Sega determining it's boring, and GameStop's own efforts outright failing. Even Ubisoft's own past efforts with NFTs have largely failed to resonate and subsequently gone quiet.

All of which maybe explains why Ubisoft has been, not necessarily secretive, but not exactly loud about this game in front of what most would consider mainstream gaming audiences. Champions Tactics was announced back in June of 2023 and various news items have floated out over the last year about its progress, largely reported at outlets focused on web3 and NFT news. But it wasn't exactly headlining with this game at Ubisoft Forward or anything.

Our shared goal is to explore new ways to play alongside bringing more value to players based on empowerment and ownership

Even the companies who are still pushing the technology have yet to answer ongoing concerns about its frequent use in and as scams, its potentially massive environmental impact, and perhaps most critically for gaming, how blockchain technology is good or useful for video games in the first place. Ubisoft, to its credit, has expressed concerns before about the environmental impact of NFTs, and the blockchain that Champions Tactics uses (Oasys) claims to be "environmentally friendly". But fundamentally, Ubisoft's perspective on the tech seems surprisingly bullish; the vice president of its Strategic Innovation Lab seems to think gamers just "don't get it." Whether or not they can be made to "get it" via games like Champions Tactics remains to be seen.

We reached out to Ubisoft for comment on the game ahead of this piece's publication. We asked them for any information on the Adults Only rating and its absence from the ESRB website, as well as for general comment on why Ubisoft is continuing to pursue a web3 strategy and if it intends to continue to do so in the future. Francois Bodson, studio director at Ubisoft Paris, responded as follows:

The team inside the Ubisoft Paris studio developing Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles partnered with Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovation Lab and Oasys to ensure that our use of blockchain was done in service of delivering new and innovative gaming experiences for our players. Our shared goal is to explore new ways to play alongside bringing more value to players based on empowerment and ownership. Champions Tactics offers deep strategic gameplay featuring unique in-game assets and several exciting innovations. These include millions of procedurally generated figurines, each with distinct stats, assets shaped directly by players' choices, and an open marketplace letting players compose their teams on a peer-to-peer basis —much like a physical trading card game. For months, we have collaborated closely with our community through events and beta phases to build and refine Champions Tactics. We’re excited to keep expanding and enhancing the experience together.

Ubisoft as a whole has been having a rough several years, weathering a steady cadence of game delays, three rounds of layoffs in the last year, a series of AAA releases failing to meet expectations, and general investor frustration. The company recently announced it was disbanding the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown development team, shifting the team to work on Beyond Good and Evil 2 (a game announced in 2008), and exploring a new Rayman game that would involve series creator Michel Ancel, who departed Ubisoft amid reports (which he denied) he contributed to a toxic workplace at the company. Ubisoft will report its quarterly earnings this Wednesday.

 

Full article text:

"This fails the needs of citizens in favor of a weak sauce argument from the industry, and it's really disappointing"

A three-year fight to help support game preservation has come to a sad end today. The US copyright office has denied a request for a DMCA exemption that would allow libraries to remotely share digital access to preserved video games.

"For the past three years, the Video Game History Foundation has been supporting with the Software Preservation Network (SPN) on a petition to allow libraries and archives to remotely share digital access to out-of-print video games in their collections," VGHF explains in its statement. "Under the current anti-circumvention rules in Section 1201 of the DMCA, libraries and archives are unable to break copy protection on games in order to make them remotely accessible to researchers."

Essentially, this exemption would open up the possibility of a digital library where historians and researchers could 'check out' digital games that run through emulators. The VGHF argues that around 87% of all video games released in the US before 2010 are now out of print, and the only legal way to access those games now is through the occasionally exorbitant prices and often failing hardware that defines the retro gaming market.

Still, the US copyright office has said no. "The Register concludes that proponents did not show that removing the single-user limitation for preserved computer programs or permitting off-premises access to video games are likely to be noninfringing," according to the final ruling. "She also notes the greater risk of market harm with removing the video game exemption’s premises limitation, given the market for legacy video games."

That ruling cites the belief of the Entertainment Software Association and other industry lobby groups that "there would be a significant risk that preserved video games would be used for recreational purposes." We cannot, of course, entertain the notion that researchers enjoy their subjects for even a moment. More importantly, this also ignores the fact that libraries already lend out digital versions of more traditional media like books and movies to everyday people for what can only be described as recreational purposes.

Members of the VGHF are naturally unhappy with the decision. "Unfortunately, lobbying efforts by rightsholder groups continue to hold back progress," the group says in its statement, noting the ESA's absolutist position that it would not support a similar sort of copyright reform under any circumstances.

"I'm proud of the work we and the orgs we partnered with did to try and change copyright law," VGHF founder and director Frank Cifaldi says on Twitter. "We really gave it our all, I can't see what else we could have done. This fails the needs of citizens in favor of a weak sauce argument from the industry, and it's really disappointing."

 

Quite a good list, although without any real surprises, except for the cheeky inclusion of a recent fan-made PC port. I'm glad Kerbal Space Program is on it, but a few other personal favorites (and candidates for best game of all time) are absent, like The Talos Principle, BeamNG.drive, NEO Scavenger, World of Goo, Mafia, Machinarium and Gothic II. Jets'n'Guns - a very early Indie masterpiece of a 2D space shooter - as well, but it's a bit too obscure for these kinds of lists. I'll stop here before I accidentally create my own top 100.

Are your favorite PC games well-represented by this list?

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