beehaw.org

TheOctonaut, do gaming w (SOLVED) Ok, so I just bought Baldurs Gate 3. Now how do I bypass the 'Create Larian Account' bit without creating an account?

If you’re using Steam (or any kind of shortcut I suppose), add --skip-launcher to the launch options. Here’s how to do so with Steam:

  • Right-click the game in your library and select Properties.
  • Look for the Launch Options field at the bottom of the General tab.
  • Add “–skip-launcher” and close the properties window.
  • Launch the game as normal.
Faydaikin, (edited )
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

Thank you for the step-by-step. Steam can be a bit of a maze when you don’t fiddle with these things so often. :)

Edit: Apparently it’s " --skip-launcher" the extra dash matters XD

Smoke,

In future, drop by the PC Gaming Wiki first - it’s a great resource for exactly this kind of question.

Skip Larian launcher on startup

Faydaikin,
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

The Launcher bit was a helpful add-in by a another kind user. I didn’t ask about that specifically, just mentioned that I dislike extra launchers.

My question was far more stupid than that. However, people came through for me regardless. And very fast at that. And for that, I am thankful.

jherazob,
@jherazob@beehaw.org avatar

I wish all these games had skippable launchers, i refuse to touch any game that needs a launcher beyond Steam

Nighed,

Does it launch with directx or Vulcan when you do this?

punter,

For me it chose direct x so I had to use the launcher. Vulcan is much better for me (just be sure to not use triple buffer for nvidia cards). Just choose skip and check the box that says ‘do not ask again’ and the launcher is less aggravating.

Avanera,

What differences do you see when you use Vulcan? And what's the deal with triple buffering?

punter,

My experience is that the directx reflections and post processing look worse. Triple buffering on was causing screen tears.

TigrisMorte,

vulkan is more efficient on AMD than directx, as I understand it.

circuitfarmer,
@circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Triple buffering basically means that the GPU can temporarily store frames in three different locations in VRAM. This has implications for smoothness and frame time, so it should in theory always be the best option for v-sync and avoiding tearing.

Vulcan should be more efficient so you should get somewhat better performance, though my understanding is it depends on card (AMD cards are kind of designed for Vulkan, but not so much nvidia cards).

Sina,

When Vulcan worked for me it used less Vram, then dx11 does now on linux.

Nighed,

It looks like the following should work (from one of the links above)

https://sffa.community/pictrs/image/3e47b677-886b-4815-95be-a6eedec8e5a0.png

raphael,

You can also make it launch the Vulkan version with skipping the launcher. Seehttps://gamepretty.com/baldurs-gate-3-how-to-skip-launcher-and-use-desired-graphical-api-vulkan-dx11/

circuitfarmer, (edited )
@circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

If anyone happens to be playing on Steam Deck (or any Linux desktop), the launch options are slightly different:

  • DX11 no launcher: –skip-launcher
  • Vulkan no launcher: bash -c ‘exec “${@/bin/bg3.exe}”’ – %command% --skip-launcher

Though for this particular title, the Vulkan one is really crashy on my system rn, which is ironic since the DX11 shaders are converted to Vulkan on Linux.

Sina,

On my system dx11 crashes right away, so vk it is…

circuitfarmer,
@circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Larian themselves warn that Vulkan should be the least stable of the two options at the moment. That said, I’ve heard tons of conflicting reports, so it may be super dependent on specific hardware.

Sina,

Ironically, with the final (not the pre-purchase) release it’s the other way around. Vulcan crashes after the airship cinematic… (I’m also on Linux)

TigrisMorte,

directx is the default and you must apply another switch to start with vulkan https://gamepretty.com/baldurs-gate-3-how-to-skip-launcher-and-use-desired-graphical-api-vulkan-dx11/

Smoke,

You can start the exe you want directly from the directory, there’s one for each renderer: www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Baldur's_Gate_3#Skip_La…

flying_monkies,
@flying_monkies@kbin.social avatar

Thank you for the info on this, will be using it going forward.

Not sure if you did this on purpose, or if something else did it as part of editing, but your bulleted steps included an en dash (–) instead of two short dashes (--).

Have had issues in the past with that, generally with WYSIWYG type editors combining your -- into either – or —.

AnarchoYeasty,

Ugh word does this. I didn’t realize until I wrote some documentation for a cli tool I made for a client and I wrote the documentation in word because they are fairly non technical so I wrote in the documentation sample arguments they can copy and paste and shipped it feeling good that it would work flawlessly because I tested the crap out of it. Or so I thought because they immediately hit back with it doesn’t work. I spent hours recreating their environment and watching it work no matter what I tried to get it to not work. Then I hopped on a call and had the client step by step show me what they did and they opened the word doc and copied the example commands, changed the arguments to be correct and run it. I followed along on my own machine and then I fucking saw what had happened. Fucking Microsoft Word replaced my " " with “ ” (straight quotes for smart quotes for those who cant see the difference). A quick patch of the cli to properly parse those and things were working again.

uid0gid0,

Copying out of MS products always seems to leave junk behind. The worst one is the zero-width space (unicode U+200B or hex e2808b) . Sharepoint loves to scatter these all over so any copy from a sharepoint source has to be put in a plain text editor and have a run through with a regex to find any invisible formatting characters.

TheOctonaut,

I typed them directly into my comment from an Android phone, and it continues to display as two hyphens/minuses for me. Are you it’s not your client trying to be clever?

apprehensively_human, do gaming w Running With Scissors Studios gives permission to pirate games

I have to imagine a comment like this does absolutely nothing to their sales figures. People who were going to download a cracked version of their games anyway remain unaffected now that they have a blessing, and I doubt people who weren’t going to pirate would now feel more inclined to do so.

This seems like good PR and frankly it should probably be the default position for games studios.

verysoft,

It won't have a large effect, but in previous examples of companies doing this, comments would lead me to believe more people who pirated end up buying the game to support the devs after trying it. It makes sense too, but same pirates are unlikely to buy anything that had denuvo and stuff shoved into it.

freeman,

Some games you dont even need a crack or anything, just access to the files.

For example with KSP, you can just clone the game directory anywhere and run it from there. Doesnt even need steam. Heck i copied it over to an M1 macbook once just to test the Macbooks performance…

Thats also how the mod managers like CKAN work with the game.

giant_smeeg,

Yeah, the whole piracy crackdown situation is so stupid.

I pirate a lot of media, if you added it all up it would be a lot of money (if I was to buy everything). The difference is, before I pirated I barely bought any of the media.

  • I pirate some games that i’d never buy. I buy all games I want to support.
  • I pay TV licence, netflix and amazon. I pirate tons of TV series because they aren’t on those services. I literally can’t buy some of them and if I could i’d need about 10 different streaming services.
  • Films, I pirate a lot of films. Before I pirated I never bought any films, i’d either wait for netflix/normal TV or just not watch them. I still go to the cinema for big releases.
  • I subscribe on patreon, github and donate to LOADS of projects, many of which i’ve pirated first or obtained a copy of (books are a big one here).

If you were to objectively look at the value of the pirated media, it would seem that i’ve “stolen” or studios have missed out on lots of revenue, but the truth is I pirate a lot of media, just because I can.

Rynelan,

It’s the streaming part for me.

Few years ago there was Netflix and Film1 in our country and an ISP with TV that also had a movie service.

That was about it.

Now there’s Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, SkyShowtime, Apple TV+ and ViaPlay added to it.

It’s impossible to have have just 1 and view what you want. Ofcourse you can keep on switching but some of them but it’s all just making it more complicated.

Solution? Pirate it. One source and everything available even stuff that isn’t on any on those services.

Also some movies can’t be bought digital.

IMO all movies and series should be available on any platform and let the streaming service decide if they want to have it in their portfolio. Only the “originals” should be locked to a platform to keep stuff unique.

And make every damn movie and series available for purchase.

giant_smeeg,

IMO all movies and series should be available on any platform and let the streaming service decide if they want to have it in their portfolio. Only the “originals” should be locked to a platform to keep stuff unique.

That’s just cable though. Not sure that’ll be any better. The second a company sees a revenue stream or thinks they’re missing out. They monetise it to the detriment of the customers.

WildlyCanadian,
@WildlyCanadian@lemmy.ca avatar

Just adding on to this, every game I’ve ever pirated I ended up buying later on. Or I bought in the past (this applies to the games I emulate)

giant_smeeg,

I would say 80% of the games I pirate, I put less than 30 mins into it.

teawrecks,

I was going to say, all artists should share this position, but I’ll do one better: if you don’t have this position, you’re not an artist. Feels bold to make any absolute claim about what makes an artist, but I feel safe on this one. If making sure you’re fairly compensated is higher priority than sharing your art, then you’re not an artist.

xgranade,

Artists, like all laborers, should be fairly compensated for their work. The idea that love of art should necessarily come into conflict with fair compensation is a primary vehicle for continuing the exploitation of creative labor.

That is somewhat orthogonal to the issue of piracy, though. Some of the most strongly anti-piracy platforms out there are also absolutely terrible in terms of labor rights (hence the current strikes in Hollywood, for instance). It’s notable that in this case, the studio seems to be saying fairly explicitly that piracy is indeed not the main obstacle to fair compensation, such that no conflict between their stance and labor rights needs to exist.

teawrecks,

If you think I’m arguing that artists should not be compensated for their work, then I’ve completely misrepresented myself. Is that what you thought I meant?

Sentinian,
@Sentinian@lemmy.one avatar

Before this tweet, they also mentioned piracy over grey market keyshops, which seems to be a lot more of a valid reason to endorse it. This seemly links to that tweet.

Stillhart, (edited ) do gaming w (SOLVED) Ok, so I just bought Baldurs Gate 3. Now how do I bypass the 'Create Larian Account' bit without creating an account?

Not to sound like a dick, but how does this have so many upvotes? There’s a button to skip it and never ask again right there.

Sev,
@Sev@feddit.uk avatar

It’s lemmy, we hate anything regarding accounts, privacy and the corpos man!!

victron,

Yeaaah, also f*ck sync D:< /s

Posted from Sync

gaytswiftfan,

lemmy saw an opportunity to hate on something and started roaming at the mouth

Faydaikin,
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

Apparently others also found the advice helpful.

woozy,

yeah thanks for posting this. super helpful to learn i can skip the launcher entirely.

LovelyCupcake, do gaming w (SOLVED) Ok, so I just bought Baldurs Gate 3. Now how do I bypass the 'Create Larian Account' bit without creating an account?

Select the “continue without login” option

Faydaikin,
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

i didn’t see that option anywhere. Gimme a sec, I’ll check again

Faydaikin,
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

I am an idiot. I didn’t click to the next page after it suggested I make an account.

I just close down the launcher immediately.

CraigeryTheKid,

nah, asking the question still gave us the ‘skip launcher’ instructions, so this is a win!

Faydaikin,
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

Thanks for making me feel slightly better about it. ;)

circuitfarmer,
@circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I had the same issue. Feels a bit shady to make people click Get Started anyway, but at least the launcher is skippable entirely.

Faydaikin,
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

I’ve just kinda gotten used to there not being an easy way around it. Hence my ‘Going Straight to the Forums’ reaction.

Default_Defect, do gaming w (SOLVED) Ok, so I just bought Baldurs Gate 3. Now how do I bypass the 'Create Larian Account' bit without creating an account?
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

Oh, are we starting the reddit tradition of making no effort at all and just immediately asking the community for help instead?

Great.

Faydaikin,
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

I can certainly see we’re keeping the reddit-tradition of being an angry little muppet at any given opportunity alive.

Yes, I asked a public forum for help about something I didn’t know. And they came through for me, more so than I would have expected.

You can go back to being angry elsewhere now. Shoo…

Default_Defect,
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

You could have just… LOOKED. I’ve got no problem when its a question with more nuance than a google search can answer easily, or if its an opinion based question, but all I ask is people just TRY before making a post somewhere when the answer is so simple.

Faydaikin,
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

And you didn’t even have to click on my shitty post as it already had (SOLVED) in the title

Default_Defect,
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

Because I want you to do better next time.

calhoon2005,
@calhoon2005@aussie.zone avatar

Oi. You two. Take it easy hey.

Default_Defect,
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

Sorry dad.

millie,

It literally says “Skip” right underneath the thing you’re complaining about. If you’d taken the time to look at the screen, you’d have seen it itself.

Faydaikin,
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

Before that, there’s just a button that says “Get Started!” Right underneath the sentence “Sigh up for a Larian Account.” Otherwise the launcher was blank.

I mistook that as being a forced sign-up, as with some many other games nowadays.

Also, I’m not complaining about anything. I was looking for advise as there seldomly are easy, search-engine friendly, solutions to forced sigh-ups.

If you’d taken the time to read through the comments, you might have gleaned the context for yourself. But since you took the time to click on a (SOLVED)-post and then write the same message the guy before did, I felt compelled to spell it all out. Just for you.

Buttons,
@Buttons@programming.dev avatar

Some people have bad eyesight. Some people have been deeply trained by the modern web to ignore most of what’s on the page (most of it being ads or other bullshit). Some people make mistakes.

Have some patience and kindness.

And to those who wont be patient or kind, just know that the next time the self-checkout machine yells at you and the cashier has to come scan their badge and gives you grief, you deserve it. Can’t you just use the machine correctly!?!

Default_Defect,
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

Imagine defending not even trying.

Faydaikin,
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

deleted_by_moderator

  • Loading...
  • Default_Defect,
    @Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

    You’re here too, seems I’m not the only one.

    Faydaikin,
    @Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

    deleted_by_moderator

  • Loading...
  • Default_Defect,
    @Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

    I’m having fun now.

    Faydaikin,
    @Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

    deleted_by_moderator

  • Loading...
  • Default_Defect,
    @Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

    As of 3 or 4 posts ago, yes.

    Faydaikin,
    @Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

    deleted_by_moderator

  • Loading...
  • Default_Defect,
    @Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

    Ok

    TheRtRevKaiser,

    You already had comments removed from this thread yesterday. Since you couldn’t take the hint to disengage and stop this bickering, I’m temp banning you from this community for 24 hours. No matter how irritated you are that OP didn’t pay attention to the prompt to skip login, this isn’t an acceptable way to behave on this instance.

    bmaxv,
    @bmaxv@noc.social avatar

    @TheRtRevKaiser

    thank you for your mod work!

    zipzoopaboop,

    That button in the corner saying skip account is really hard, okay?!?

    Faydaikin,
    @Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

    Repeating other peoples sentiments two days later is really constructive, okay?!?

    Get out of here, Sleepy.

    buffalo,

    Imagine if you put all this effort you made from this post, including it’s whiny, snarky comments, and like… idk took less than 5 seconds to be constructive and figure out your answer.

    I mean seriously, a 10 year old could have figured it out.

    Faydaikin,
    @Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

    It’s my post. I get notified whenever one of you sillybillies get the bright idea to call me an idiot instead of just scrolling on.

    gyrfalcon,
    @gyrfalcon@beehaw.org avatar

    Gonna be honest, this comment further down explains why you should have some compassion even on posts that seem obvious to you: beehaw.org/comment/883359

    Consider taking this approach in the future.

    buffalo, (edited )

    Nah.

    This is different. This post by op is simply lack of effort and ignorance. There’s a minimum expectation of effort here. Gotta at least try for your self before you reach out and waste people’s time.

    Daydreamy,

    I had no skip button.

    It’s not as clear cut as you might think.

    Moonrise2473, do gaming w Running With Scissors Studios gives permission to pirate games

    Their reason is: people is using g2a for “discounted” keys.

    Where the “discount” comes? Easy, some asshole buys from their website many keys with a stolen credit card, then they will need to refund it + pay an expensive fee for the chargeback.

    I’m not a dev but at that point I would just give up selling keys by myself and I would just rely on steam for fraud detection. The only case where the 30% fee is justified

    ChronosWing,

    I’ll take the downvotes but this is hardly true. Most of them come from bundles and purchasing them in other countries where it’s a lot cheaper. You can prove this easily by checking games on g2a that almost never go on sale or are included in bundles and you will notice the price is the same or a few dollars cheaper than steam.

    averyminya,

    Most == prevent.

    The issue with G2A is that any keys at all come from scammed credit cards. In a silly way it’s like of like tor. It doesn’t matter if I am trying to sell my excess Humble Bundle keys in good faith on G2A if other sellers on the market are selling scammed keys. Good users making listings obfuscate all the bad users.

    Also, purchasing regional keys cheaper and reselling them is also what causes this shit in the first place. People blame Valve for making the decision, but not the people switching to a region to buy a game for cents on the dollar and then resell it? That is actively hurting the people in those countries who are now being charged closer to USD prices. For Brazillians this is exorbitant.

    I don’t disagree with you in that there are G2A keys that come from bundles. But I do disagree with the notion that “it doesn’t matter.” It absolutely matters because it’s affecting people’s ability to buy games and it affects people circumventing legal purchase methods (of which I support their circumventing) who then have to deal with buying scammed credit card keys instead of me selling them and excess Humble Bundle key. The card gets charged back, the developer loses money, the G2A purchaser loses their key, and the scammers get off scott-free.

    Basically, G2A should be a good idea but has been co-opted by scammers. These sites have their grey-market reputation for a reason, because it’s run entirely off of the losses of others. Losses of the developers, losses of regional players, and losses of players purchasing games on these grey-market sites.

    There’s no winners for G2A except for the owners of the site and scammers. You may win once in a while getting a brand new game for $5-25 less. You may end up losing when it’s pulled from your account, if it does. At that point, you’re effectively gambling. Taking a risk for a discount on something with a high likelihood of it being unethically sourced which may be removed from your account?

    In most cases I’d personally rather pay the extra $15 to just have the peace of mind. The chance of the game not being bought on a stolen CC and not supporting regional theft that hurts those players is just a bonus.

    Solarius,

    If they’re charging less in different regions and people were using VPNs to purchase then you’d think that’d be a sign that maybe game prices are too high. They’re selling an identical product at a much cheaper price because the people in some countries are poorer or their currency is garbage compared to USD? Pretty gross to think about.

    ChronosWing,

    I never said it didn’t matter. I said it’s not at prevalent as people are making it out to be. I’ve purchased 100s of steam keys from these sites over the years and never came across an instance where the key was removed or revoked. All of these sites guarantee the key is good or your money back anyways so I find it hard to believe that is what is going on at all. As long as you purchase the key from a reputable seller as they all have ratings just like eBay then there is no issue. I think maybe in the early days of key sellers it’s what was happening, but these sites would have fizzled out a long time ago if they were bastions of credit card fraud.

    Tigwyk,
    @Tigwyk@lemmy.vrchat-dev.tech avatar

    Anecdotally, I’ve bought 3 keys over the years from g2a and 2 of them immediately didn’t work. Iirc there’s a big button you click during checkout if your key doesn’t work and the seller immediately has to provide you with a working one. That’s not g2a though, that’s just the seller providing you with another cheap key from their collection. G2A is scammy in other ways too (I’ve yet to be able to cancel their $2 “insurance” fee or whatever they call it the first time, it’s been years and I’ll probably have to chargeback since their site just throws me errors when I try to cancel. PayPal won’t even let me cancel it from their end.)

    Why defend them?

    ChronosWing,

    Because I’ve never had a reason not to? I’ve only used G2A a few times but you can just remove the insurance at checkout. Never had an issue.

    averyminya,

    Except for, again, how it’s screwing over developers, players in other regions, and supporting credit card scammers.

    ChronosWing,

    I’ve seen no concrete evidence of any of that. So agree to disagree.

    averyminya,

    You said yourself some of the keys come from regional bypassing?

    ChronosWing,

    No, I said they are bought in other regions. There is no proof that is from any bypass. Just some guy who lives in a poverished nation trying to turn a profit.

    argv_minus_one,

    So, basically, G2A is a fence for stolen property? Why hasn’t it been shut down by law enforcement?

    BirdyBoogleBop,

    Because only Factorio has been able to proove that is happening. That and they pretend they don’t know that is happening as they are just the middle men.

    Smoke,

    Can you give the backstory of what happened with Factorio?

    Moonrise2473,

    factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303

    They lost $6600 in chargebacks and g2a was running an ad campaign using their name on Google

    BirdyBoogleBop,

    arstechnica.com/…/g2a-confirms-stolen-game-key-sa…

    I had a better link on my old Lemmy instance but that one went the way of the dodo and I can’t find that in-depth explanation.

    Basically Factorio never goes on sale. Ever, it only gets more expensive so, if someone is selling a key for a price lower than their starting price point it must have been fraudulent.

    Sprokes,

    In Europe at least if strong authentication was done during the purchase (and it is mandatory since a few years), the merchant is protected and the bank issued the card will take the loss. They don’t need to refund or pay fees for charge back.

    Moonrise2473,

    Are you sure? My stripe merchant account still mentions the 15 euro chargeback fee and now in my country is easier to ask for a chargeback, can do at the phone while before you needed to send a registered snail mail at a secret address with the right timing using a secret form, while sending a copy of the police report via fax

    bazke,

    SCA (strong customer authentication) should indeed move the liability for fraudulent purchases to the issuer. Wording in contracts may still mention other things. We had to, for one specific payment service provider, explicitly tell them to only allow card purchases using SCA since we had problems with stolen cards. With some PSPs we could just refuse certain ECI codes. Been a few years for me and YMMV but if chargebacks are causing headaches it might be worth looking into.

    Sprokes,

    I worked at company like stripe and exactly at the scope of authentication/liability. I am not sure about whatever you pay the charge back fee even though the liability is shifted from you to the issuer bank. Do you have 3DS2 enabled for your payments?

    It is normal that Stripe mention the charge back fees as there are exceptions for strong authentication but it is worth asking them for details and whatever you pay the fee even when liability have been shifted. And maybe the issuer bank will just do refund and take the loss if it see the SCA have been done.

    Moonrise2473,

    Luckily I never had a chargeback, I meant I still saw it in the fees

    BA834024112, do gaming w (SOLVED) Ok, so I just bought Baldurs Gate 3. Now how do I bypass the 'Create Larian Account' bit without creating an account?

    Just hit skip, dumbass

    MJBrune,

    No need for name calling. Everyone gets frustrated and misses things.

    isame,

    Agreed. If you have a point, make it. No need to be rude about it.

    iesou,

    Don’t gotta be rude. Let’s be better than that

    loops, do gaming w Running With Scissors Studios gives permission to pirate games

    I wish more companies did this; however, I believe most CEO’s have the biased view that everyone has at least some money to spare which, as you probably know (likely on personal level), isn’t true.

    I understand that participating in cultural aspects of society must cost money due to the very nature of economics (if you want the artist to continue to make art, make sure they don’t starve to death) but ‘pirating’ things is there not only as a stop gap to terrible service and personal risk (privacy violations, etc.), but also as an equalizer between those that have, and those that don’t.

    ApathyTree,
    @ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    If I made enough that I didn’t have to worry about money while working full time, I’d be much more inclined to spend money on arts and entertainment. As it stands, my entertainment budget is almost entirely going to get food I don’t have to make myself.

    But until society shifts focus to living wages (and not just enough to live, but enough to thrive)…… welp. Maybe those ceos should think on that, and start paying better.

    loops,

    Definitely. I recall a time in my life where I was working while still living with my parents. Needless to say I had A LOT of money I didn’t know what to do with. I ended up with about 2 storage bins of books and CD’s. I eventually got rid of them when computers became much more capable, but I think I would still buy them if I had extra income. I doubt I will though for at least another 2 decades, considering all the student debt I have. Who would’ve thought that loading people with crippling financial debt would be bad for the economy?

    Tigwyk,
    @Tigwyk@lemmy.vrchat-dev.tech avatar

    I’ll be pedantic and say that CEOs are paid to think everyone has money to spend. ;)

    But I totally agree with you.

    loops,

    I live for pedantry. (☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞

    sunaurus, (edited ) do gaming w Running With Scissors Studios gives permission to pirate games

    This approach makes so much sense from a business perspective.

    How many here have this experience: out of my entire friend group that I grew up playing video games with, I can’t think of a single person who kept pirating games after acquiring disposable income, even though we all exclusively played pirated games as teenagers. Without piracy, none of us would have had access to any games, and very likely none of us would still be into gaming today, spending probably thousands of euros every year on games, consoles, PC components, etc.

    rynzcycle,

    I miss the era of freeware and demos. Give me a taste with no strings attached and you are far more likely to get my money at some point.

    interolivary,
    !deleted5791 avatar

    Yeah it’s a shame demos died out. Now studios (or publishers, more likely) just expect everyone to pay for a game they don’t even know they’ll like, and tough shit if you don’t like it.

    TwilightVulpine,

    They want people to buy before they know what is like so they don't have a chance to reconsider or regret it. This is why they hype preorders.

    Misconduct,

    But so many games still have demos? I feel like it’s probably more that they’re cheap and don’t see a reason to pay whatever it costs to throw a demo together for free

    TwilightVulpine,

    Like people have been pointing out, it's usually indies which don't have an establish audience yet that do this. It's much rarer for triple A games.

    yaminoEXE,

    A lot of indie games on steam still do demos actually but yeah shitty that AAA games don’t do them anymore.

    interolivary,
    !deleted5791 avatar

    Huh, I haven’t run into an indie with a demo recently, but it’s definitely great to hear that demos are still a thing in the wider indie scene.

    yaminoEXE,

    During the many steam festivals, there will be indie games with demos.

    HidingCat,

    The last Steam Next Fest in June had so many demos, I only had time for like 4-5. There were quite a few posts and comments (including mine) on the demos we tried.

    Jamie,
    @Jamie@jamie.moe avatar

    I often grab a pirated copy to see if I like it first, and if I do, I’ll buy it. If I play it once or twice and don’t really get much out of it, I’m not out anything but some download time.

    Gordon_Freeman,
    @Gordon_Freeman@kbin.social avatar

    Demos have returned, on PC at least.

    "Steam Next Fest" are events when devs launch demost for their upcoming projects. it's like 3 or 4 times per year

    mabd,
    @mabd@kbin.social avatar

    I love Next Fest, I usually end up wishlisting like 3-10 games. Lots of good stuff that I'd never know or care about otherwise.

    barsoap,

    I know of a certain former boss of mine who, after becoming a millionaire by side-lining the whole (game!) company and selling it to random yanks who didn’t know WTF to do with it, still continued to pirate games. While moving into the most expensive quarter of the city – by renting a house there.

    But sane people without a cocaine habit, sure, yes.

    uberrice,

    Yup. The only time I pirate a game nowadays is when I can’t get it on steam for the 2 hour refund as a demo.

    milkytoast,
    @milkytoast@kbin.social avatar

    is two hours enough for you to get into a game tho? it took me 4 hours to get into stardew and no mans sky alike, and once I was into it, I was hooked. however, after two hours, both games were kinda shit to me

    Fubarberry, do gaming w Let's discuss: Polybius
    @Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz avatar

    For anyone who doesn’t know, Polybius is an urban legend about a government experiment in the form of an arcade game set up in Portland.

    Here’s the wiki article.

    Polybius is a fictitious 1981 arcade game from an urban legend. The legend describes the game as part of a government-run crowdsourced psychology experiment based in Portland, Oregon. Gameplay supposedly produced intense psychoactive and addictive effects in the player. These few publicly staged arcade machines were said to have been visited periodically by men in black for the purpose of data-mining the machines and analyzing these effects. Supposedly, all of these Polybius arcade machines then disappeared from the arcade market.

    It’s a fun tale though, and there are some good articles and video essays on it.

    ethd, do gaming w Tried to make Abed (Danny Pudi) in Fallout 4

    Cool.

    Cool cool cool.

    jdf038,

    Troy and abed in the mooooorning

    scroll_responsibly,
    @scroll_responsibly@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    Nightsssss

    scottywh, do gaming w Running With Scissors Studios gives permission to pirate games

    Just had to fucking ruin it by saying based huh?

    Naatan,

    I’m getting old … what does this mean and why is it objectionable? Google suggests it means they have strong character, which seems like a fair assessment.

    mothersprotege,

    I’ve long regarded it as a red flag, since the first people I encountered using it were alt-right dipshits. Subsequently it seems to have been adopted wholesale, and I get the impression that most people don’t see it as politically charged.

    scottywh,

    I just see it as fuckin stupid personally and it’s begun to inspire more and more rage in me as a result.

    Like enshitification, I see it as Idiocracizing society mostly.

    stephen01king,

    Go to bed already grandpa. Stop hating on new words so much.

    Crotaro,

    My man, that’s so not funky of you! If you skedaddle into this far out place called internet, you have to expect to come across new terms that are slammin and radical to some people. Instead of giving them hairy eyeballs and going “No can do”, how about you say “Word, brother”? Every generation invents its own gnarly slang and that’s pretty fly, actually. Like, what makes your slang groovy and theirs bogus?

    CrabLord,

    Groovy is definitely a word we should all use more.

    Dave,
    @Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

    To a zoomer, based is the opposite of cringe (I’m told). This is the first time I’ve seen it mentioned in regards to alt-right, that sounds like they happened to be alt-right zoomers.

    p03locke,
    @p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    No, it’s not the “opposite of cringe” and it’s not an alt-right dog whistle. It just means the person or group is willing to do the right thing, above politics or greed. It’s more comparable to Giga Chad, but it’s more accurate to say that Giga Chad when used in memes is the representation of a based individual.

    Also, “alt-right” is a dog whistle for “white supremacist”, invented by a white supremacist to soften the language. Stop using it. Just call them white supremacists or fascists.

    cobra89,

    My understanding of “based” from years and years ago was that it was used as an exclamation when people essentially weren’t afraid to speak their minds even if they’re likely to get shit for said opinion.

    That’s why it’s gotten associated with the alt-right because it was usually bigoted douchebags saying bigoted shit that other bigots would then respond “based” to. I feel like the terminology was associated with 4chan in its early usage and spread to reddit.

    I believe your definition that is popular with Gen Z is a newer development.

    scottywh,

    Years and years?

    bullshit

    cobra89,

    knowyourmeme.com/memes/based

    From 2014? So yes years and years. Maybe use Google before you decide to be a douche.

    echodot,

    And then do it anyway right?

    scottywh,

    Fuck you dickhead

    The_Hunted_One,
    @The_Hunted_One@beehaw.org avatar

    Please remember, this is Beehaw. Our primary rule is Be(e) Nice.

    scottywh,

    Those “giga Chad” bullshits are dumb as hell too.

    Rentlar,

    What I understand this originates from is “not based on anything”, so essentially bucking the trend or the norm. Doing things not because something or someone told them.

    It’s 4chan type of language, itself an alt-right cesspool.

    Naatan,

    Gotcha… From reading all the responses, it sounds like the word and meaning itself isn’t really objectionable, it’s more the people that use it. Which isn’t something a search engine tells you… 😅

    blindsight,

    It’s gone mainstream. I hear it in high schools all the time from many different students. I think it’s pretty unobjectionable.

    scottywh,

    I’m fuckin old too and that’s why it pisses me off… It’s fuckin nonsense words.

    noodlejetski,

    wait till you hear about all the other nonsense words.

    (hint: all words are nonsense)

    echodot,

    Words have meaning, and that meaning is defined by common understanding. If a significant percentage of the population does not know what a word means, (and I mean a significant percentage not just some people) then it’s fair to say the word is essentially nonsense.

    The problem is sometimes people pick a word and then decide on its meaning but then neglect to inform the rest of the human population - see Woke. That’s not how language works, it’s about mutual acceptance the particular sound or set of sounds means a particular idea or concept or thing. If that mutual acceptance is not there, then it is not a word.

    Serdan,

    Humanity is not a hive mind. We can’t just inform everyone instantly.

    echodot,

    People have been using it for years no one knows what it means.

    noodlejetski,

    see Woke

    it’s been coined by the Black community, essentially meaning being aware of, and alert to, the systematic injustice against them. there you go.

    echodot,

    There are many people who would disagree that that is its meaning, and that’s the problem. There is no completely defined meaning for these words, they mean different things to different people so when you say the word I don’t know what meaning is supposed to be interpreted.

    hikaru755,
    @hikaru755@feddit.de avatar

    That’s how literally all language change happens? People just start using words differently or use new words, it slowly spreads, until a majority is using it. You can either embrace it and be happy you get new tools to express yourself with, or reenact the “old man yells at clouds” meme and be grumpy. I know which one I’ll choose.

    blindsight, (edited )

    What you’re missing is that language is often used differently in subculture groups and other niches. Language frequently changes meaning depending on context, and that’s how it’s supposed to work.

    Language never has been and never will be static. Shared slang is a very important part of signaling that you are part of an “in group”, and it will always change rapidly, compared to language in more common usage.

    Related: trans-phobic signaling that “they/them” should be used exclusively singularly as a plural, despite its common use as a gender neutral pronoun for centuries.

    EnderofGames,

    exclusively singularly

    I think you mean... plurally?

    Long before I had any knowledge of transgender or even transexuality, I knew to use they/them when gender was unknown. I agree that the "singular they" is long accepted, correct, common English.

    Naatan,

    Lol… it definitely reminds you of how old you’re getting. But I’m sure the generations preceding ours felt the same.

    bundes_sheep,

    I figure people need to pick up on new slang or risk becoming the old man or woman that yells at kids to get off their lawn one day.

    droans,

    Y’all called people daddio.

    altima_neo,
    @altima_neo@lemmy.zip avatar

    Yeah, it’s pretty cringe

    Satan,

    It’s just slang that more-or-less means “confident”, originally coined by the rapper Lil B.

    While it’s an interesting line of inquiry as to why internet culture may appropriate and adopt words like this, this comment is just giving off major “old man yells at cloud” energy.

    frei,

    Based is just a common word zoomers like me use. While your likely implication of it being some sort of dogwhistle or right wing term might have been correct like, half a decade ago, it doesn’t apply anymore. Everyone uses it between the age of 16-20.

    Simply: Based = Good Cringe = Bad

    scottywh,

    Idiots use it.

    That’s all.

    EnderofGames,

    Idiots use lots of words. Like the word "idiots".

    scottywh,

    Says the fuckin idiot

    Sina,

    I wish people stopped using it, because it’s often confusing as f.

    SRo, do gaming w (SOLVED) Ok, so I just bought Baldurs Gate 3. Now how do I bypass the 'Create Larian Account' bit without creating an account?

    Are you blind?

    Faydaikin,
    @Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

    No. Are you just here to be an ass?

    Harrison,

    Yes

    jackie_jormp_jomp,

    It’s the entire reason I have Internet access

    squirrel, do gaming w Let's discuss: Stardew Valley
    @squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    I love this game (500 hours played), but I have to bring up a point of criticism…

    One aspect which has not aged well IMHO is the “kindness coin” mechanic: The exchange of goods for the NPCs’ friendship and/or affection. You give the NPCs stuff, then you give them more stuff, then some more on top, then you get a cut scene and then you get back to giving them stuff until you trigger the next one.

    Yes, the requests on the blackboard and the occasional personal quest mix up things a little bit, but overall the mechanic remains the same and for me over the years this has cheapened the interaction with the NPCs for me somewhat: They are mostly transactional and predictable to the point where you can calculate their outcome.
    You have to give character A so-and-so many objects X to romance them. It takes so-and-so many days to do that.

    Sure, the “kindness coins” mechanic was industry standard at the time, but I wish there were more variety in regards to the interactions with the NPCs, because they are amazingly written and I wish there was more to do with them besides giving them stuff over and over again.

    Midnitte,

    I’m sure he’ll probably use a different mechanic for Haunted Chocolatier, probably too late to change it for Stardew Vallery, given it’s age and the existing complexity of the game.

    Pyro,

    Are there games which don’t use this mechanic? Might be interesting to check out.

    squirrel,
    @squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    The most famous one ATM is probably “Baldur’s Gate 3” which offers a wide variety of mechanics and stats to measure if an NPC member of the player’s party is romantically interested in the player character. Two examples given in the talk I linked are the VNs “Monster Prom” or “First Bite”.

    SteposVenzny,

    My understanding of Baldur’s Gate 3 is that everybody is romantically interested in the player character.

    Maybe I’m just a catch?

    squirrel,
    @squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    Yes and no. Like in Stardew Valley, technically you can romance every NPC in your party, but in practice you have to meet certain criteria to do so and those differ from character to character. Of course, it is possible to “game” that system.

    princessnorah,
    @princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    If you haven’t played since relatively early in it’s release, I believe that was a bug that has now been fixed.

    sub_ubi, (edited ) do gaming w Let's discuss: DOOM

    I enjoy the flow of the new Doom Eternal, once you get the hang of it you can keep an infinite supply of health and ammo that only runs out when everything’s dead - and you end up taking on much more than you thought possible.

    However the jaw-dropping, frightening game that Doom was in 1993 will never be recaptured. Yes, scary games existed. Yes, 3D FPS existed. But nothing came close to Doom, it was a graphical marvel. I’d show it to friends, grandparents, anyone who’d look and they’d all either be amazed or reach for the bible. Their idea of video games was mario, Doom broke brains.

    Doom 2 is what I played most. At the time, playing over a local BBS with my 28k modem (the fastest available!), I could see that network play was the future of gaming.

  • Wszystkie
  • Subskrybowane
  • Moderowane
  • Ulubione
  • giereczkowo
  • Spoleczenstwo
  • niusy
  • Pozytywnie
  • Blogi
  • sport
  • lieratura
  • esport
  • Cyfryzacja
  • rowery
  • kino
  • muzyka
  • LGBTQIAP
  • opowiadania
  • slask
  • Psychologia
  • motoryzacja
  • turystyka
  • MiddleEast
  • krakow
  • fediversum
  • zebynieucieklo
  • test1
  • Archiwum
  • FromSilesiaToPolesia
  • NomadOffgrid
  • m0biTech
  • goranko
  • Wszystkie magazyny