Just for the sake of being fair, Steam does do one thing which is anticompetitive; they require publishers don’t sell their games for less than they do on Steam.

If you think about this for a moment you’ll realise it’s in the publisher’s best interest to agree to this.

One of the problems Epic has is that it is only a store front. Steam is a fully featured platform.

Epic, in their lawsuit, wants to break Steam’s store and platform into separate applications, so they can compete.

Sort of like how people want to have different app stores on their iphones.

Difference is: Steam has no restrictions in the first place. You can add non-Steam games to the client if you want. You can use Proton if you want.

Steam offers all of these features for free. What is the point in breaking them apart.

It’s hilarious to me that Epic will never introduce features like this, and also complain Steam has a monopoly, as if they’re at all comparable

Games are art. I have full respect for an artist who does not compromise their vision for someone who refuses to engage with the art, on the artists terms.

A lot of people played The Witcher 3 and thought the combat was boring, but never spent time preparing for battle by considering which oils and potions to use - because they didn’t need to. They were playing on easy or normal.

These people robbed themselves of the experience of immersing themselves in the role of a Witcher, and turned each encounter into a button masher.

Imagine being a developer and seeing people shit on your game for ‘unengaging combat’.

Now, sure, you can make the argument that that’s just one element of The Witcher 3, and some people are playing for the story - and fair enough.

But there isn’t anything analogous in the Souls franchise. The gameplay IS bashing your head against a wall for ten hours. You don’t get to just turn down the difficulty, breeze through every boss on the first try, and claim the game is boring.

Terrerrerreera 5 eva

Where’s my upstream explicit sync lads

Paragraphs are your friends

I see your olfactory pallette is not very refined, novice stench hunter. Teenage boys who don’t shower often, and rich slaveowning cops have very different scents.

About three years ago I came across a rich slaveowning teenage boy who didn’t shower often.

The overlap created this dangerous aroma which waft over me like an Appalachia Egg Fart. I wish I could have bottled it for my kids.

As a fellow connoisseur of teenage boy odour, I concur.

It’s not technically Isekai

0/10

Great episode.

I’m tempted to believe in reality, some kind of “mutually assured destruction” scenario would occur.

If I was to create a simulation, I would add in a recursive condition wherein the detection of another simulation would crash the system.

But the theme the episode really touched on was whether it was right to tell another the truth about reality. Maybe that reality isn’t another layer up, but that God exists, or maybe not.

Assuming you found out we really were in a simulation, what is the right thing to do? Force everyone to learn the truth? Hide your knowledge of it?

If you thought: “I can tell the people who want to know”, you’ve just created a cult.

Personally, I’m convinced we are not in a simulation. But that’s only assuming the level above us is somewhat similar (a universe that started with a big bang and formed stars and planets and evolution etc).

Think of it this way: an advanced society would need to evolve more than us, meaning more filters to pass before achieving this kind of power. This means unlimited power and unlimited processing power.

I fucking hate that I learned what this means a month ago.

Bought myself a ZigBee coordinator and started pairing some devices.

Sweet! That was easy, now all that’s left are the Tuya ceiling fans

Little did I know, what was about to happen would cost me my sanity.

Honestly, just give me a fucking HP printer and ask me to connect it to my computer from the other side of the world.

At the risk of sounding critical of your hobby, to argue the imperfections improve the experience sounds somewhat culty.

I understand there is something akin to “character” which you don’t get from something highly polished. I know when things sound too clean it can feel sterile.

I accept vinyl has a collectors value, but anything claims regarding preference come across as either pretentious or deluded (to me, as someone who probably can’t tell the difference).

What made it so good to you?

The atmosphere of oppression?

The depiction of descent into nihilism, then rebellion?

The reflection of a society which pushes those who deviate from the norm, not just aside, but explicitly down?

dude has a point

Damn straight

it’s about alcohol

Ha ha, yeah

What did you think about the movie?

How would you score it?

Do you feel it’s under, or over rated?

Sandy is even MORE broken now.

The Apogee variant slows time by 85% for six seconds.

Increases head shot damage, crit chance and crit damage. Each kill extends the sandy and gives stamina.

It’s busted as fuck. Melee is the new OP way to play, and personally, most fun.

Sometimes I miss my “I’m too high to fight you” character. She was fully decked out in all things hacking, including the old style of perk progression - which meant levelling breach protocol to 20 - there are almost not enough terminals in the game to hit 20, seriously.

Imagine this:

Fixer asks you to get a diamond encrusted dildo from the most dangerous gang in the neighbourhood.

You sit outside an enemy building, look at their camera, play a little matching game, ping the camera, highlight the boss top floor and order them to vomit until they die.

You watch as everyone in the building starts throwing up, vomit running down the stairs, the ceiling fan flicking vomit on the walls, basically everywhere except the toilet.

You walk in, grab the dildo, and walk out, there was never a threat of danger.

PC

I’m a day one CP77 player and spent a lot of time in Night City. I’ve made four level 50 characters, read every patch note as it updated, and even fell into the FF06B5 rabbit hole.

The launch wasn’t great, but the negativity was miscalibrated.

The worst part of launch was the previous gen versions, which were functionally unplayable.

Yet most people were hanging shit on visual bugs and physics irregularities. This is an issue since CP77 is supposed to specialise in spectacle and immersion, but was a long way from being “unplayable”.

Outside of one instance, during an emotional scene, when a character died while a gun was clipped through his head, these bugs were funny. It didn’t affect how much fun I had.

The game is in a very good state now. The progression system had a major overhaul since the start of 2.0 and it is a fucking blast!

The game is far more streamlined, they’ve reduced the time spent in the menu, and made cyberware more important.

Perk points are now a lot more balanced.

Previously, if you wanted to play “properly”, you would dump 20 attribute points in Cool for Cold Blood, 18 in Tech to craft legendary items, and 20 into Intelligence/Body/Reflex, depending on your main damage type. It was quite restrictive.

Now the game is pushing you to use each attribute type to level up all five of your skills.

Besides leveling Tech up to 20 (you’re a dipshit if you don’t), and Reflexes to 15 (for air-dash) you can basically do whatever the fuck you want with your stats, and the gameplay is far better for it.

Once you get things set up, you’re zipping around the city like spiderman, sliding up to peoples butts at 70km/h and shoving the funnel of a shotgun into their ass. It’s a good feeling.

I think the implication is that it might be porn you would rather not see.