Magic the Gathering: Arena grabbed my attention again after our friend group picked up the cards again. When I dont play modern stuff I’ll boot up my PS2 and play Monster Hunter 2 (DOS) online. Some smart folks brought back a private server for the old PS2 era games. Great Community (MHOLDSCHOOL Discord, also hosts of the Server) and a change of pace.
Enable SSH access (but make sure it only accepts key-based logins - password based on a mobile device that might operate in untrusted networks is a bad idea).
If you enable SSH, you can transfer files from the PC over WLAN. (If you are on Windows: FileZilla is your friend.) Also, you can remote access the Steam Deck command line via SSH. (If you are on Windows: PuTTY is your friend.) That’s way less annoying than having to type longer texts (think: script files to launch emulators) with the on-screen keyboard.
I know next to nothing about PC utilization. I’ve mainly been a Mac user, but am familiar with PCs from using one at work. It’s not really admin locked so u typically can use it for personal things; but I admit that I don’t really know anything about SSH access or transferring files via FileZilla.
Is there a good guide somewhere that explains how to do this?
There are plenty on the web (for instance on handheld.quest), but I haven’t found a single one that contains all details…
So, I’ll just try to sum up the details here:
First things first: SSH stands for Secure Shell, and is basically an encrypted remote command line, but it offers much more features than just a command line, including, but not limited to, file transfer. The file transfer feature is also known as sftp, and generally considered to be the successor of the more well known ftp protocol.
The very first thing I would do on the Steam Deck would be to set a host name in the settings, such that you don’t need to use the IP address to address it over the network. Screenshot (I totally haven’t just found by googling).
The Steam Deck comes with an SSH server pre-installed, you need to enable it though. The following steps need to be done on a terminal, in desktop mode. The terminal that’s installed on the Steam Deck is called “Konsole” (if I remember correctly). Once you have a terminal running on Desktop Mode, you can enable the SSH server via the following steps (I’ll link the help for all commands I mention, so that you can verify that I’m not trying to trick you into doing something bad):
First you need to get administrator (“root”) access to the Steam Deck, what can be done by setting a password for the default user. Don’t worry, the Steam Deck won’t start asking for a password on startup, it’s just required in order to get admin access. The command to set/change the current user’s password is simply https://manpage.me/?q=passwd. While typing the password, there won’t be any feedback on the screen. This is normal.
Once the password has been set, you can use the https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/sudo.8.html command to run other commands as administrator. sudo will ask you to confirm your identity by entering the password.
To stop the SSH server again, you can use sudo systemctl stop sshd.
To enable autostart for the SSH server, sudo systemctl enable sshd (but I would not recommend this unless you disable password based logins - see below)
To disable autostart for the SSH server, sudo systemctl disable sshd
On the PC from which you want to connect to the Deck you will need some kind of sftp client. On Linux most file managers have sftp functionality built-in. On Windows and MacOS one needs a special program for this though (afaik). There are many, many alternatives here (just search “sftp client” in your search engine of choice), but the most well known one is FileZilla, which works on Windows, macOS, Linux and many other operating systems. I recommend FileZilla for two reasons. The first is that it’s open source (and free of charge), the second one is that I personally like it as a tool. At work I (have to) use Windows, and whenever I have to transfer files to a remote system like our webservers, our contractor’s cloud storage, or simply to copy a few music files from my phone to the office PC (yes, I am this old), FileZilla is the go-to solution for me.
If you have started the SSH server on the deck, you should now be able to access its contents via sftp. The default user on the Steam Deck is called deck, the password is the one you set earlier using the passwd command. If you are lost using FileZilla, there’s a user’s guide online.
Now, as promised, a few words on security and autostarting the SSH server. If you plan on auto-starting the SSH server on the Steam Deck, I would recommend to set up a means to connect to it without a password, and then to disable password-based SSH connections. The reason is that the Steam Deck, as a mobile device, will quite likely end up in insecure or otherwise untrusted wireless networks, and passwords are really not the most secure way of user authentication… Since SSH is a full remote access protocol, anyone who guesses your password and can reach the deck over the network could do anything on it. Given that the deck’s battery runtime is already short enough even if there is no bitcoin miner running in the background, you probably don’t want password based logins via SSH enabled permanently.
That’s where Public-key authentication comes in. You can configure the SSH server to allow users to connect without a password, if the users have access to a private key for which the corresponding public key is known to the server. To enable this, all you need to do is to create a public/private SSH key pair, and upload the public key to the SSH server on the Steam Deck. The exact process of creating those keys is again depending on the operating system. Here’s a guide about SSH key generation that includes instructions for macOS and Windows. On macOS or Linux the instructions are actually identical. You just need to open a terminal, and, if they don’t exist for your user yet, run https://manpage.me/?q=ssh%2Dkeygen to create the keys. Then you can use https://manpage.me/?q=ssh%2Dcopy%2Did to upload the public key to the Steam Deck. Once that is done, if your system uses https://manpage.me/?q=ssh%2Dagent, connecting via public key should “just work” - also in FileZilla. If you don’t use ssh-agent, you can try these steps in FileZilla.
Once you have confirmed that passwordless public-key logins are working, you can edit the file /etc/ssh/sshd.conf on the steam deck. You’ll need admin access, so the easiest way to do that is probably to run sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd.conf on a terminal (nano help). The relevant change is to replace the line #PasswordAuthentication yes by PasswordAuthentication no (here’s the help file for sshd.conf). In order to apply these changes, you probably need to restart the SSH server: sudo systemctl restart sshd.
We had dozens of preorders for Mortal Kombat 2 for the SNES. We got 8 copies in at our Software Etc. and did not get any new inventory for over a month. It was crazy.
I don’t think I’ve ever really liked the way Metacritic does it. GameRankings was my go-to for years (RIP), but I’ve preferred OpenCritic for review aggregating since they started up.
There’s a lot of churn in video games criticism right now, and this year in particular highlighted some issues I have with how some outlets are doing things with their reviews. Things like rushing to press without finishing games (even just 20 hours in some cases), and omitted technical performance/bug discussion. I was enjoying The Washington Post’s game section but that got shut down. Eurogamer and Gamespot were previous favorites of mine, but they seem to have changed their criticism style and I’m not a fan of what either are doing.
I do have some PC outlets I still like (PC Gamer and Rock, Paper, Shotgun for anyone else reading), but I can’t say I have an outstanding favorite otherwise at the moment. I pretty much just browse OpenCritic and pick out reviews at the extreme ends of the score spread and some random ones in the middle at this point.
I try to do the patient gamer thing too, as I’m always happier with games that have been polished (and they are cheaper). The threads in those communities are great for finding games. The Fediverse has one at !patientgamers although it’s still not super active yet.
I always look for let’s play series by 2-3 different YouTubers (1-2 episodes) before I decide if the game is for me. Scores are meaningless if I am not interested in that genre or specific gameplay mechanics
Just started playing Space Engineers on Steam. That feeling of finally making a ship that can get into space with enough fuel to get to the next planet couldn’t be better.
I’m still making my way through Tears of the Kingdom. Just finished the water temple. I spent so much time aimlessly wandering so I’ve decided to push on and finish out some quests.
I also started Soul Hackers 2 and I love Ringo and her personality already.
I sprained my foot and had to stay in this weekend, so I got back to TOTK for the first time in like a month. I’m about 25hrs in and had a slightly different start? I did the Water Temple basically first, THEN got sidetracked, wandered around doing shrines and side quests.
Oh man, I would have really struggled with that boss at the water temple if it wasn’t for the high powered swords and bows I had from my wandering. I just couldn’t keep up with them haha
Mad Max - Played for a couple days this week, taking down camps and gathering scrap, and I think I got it out of my system. For now. Metro: Last Light - Finally got around to finishing the playthrough that I started a few weeks ago, plus ran through all the DLCs. I had a lot of fun with them, except for Heavy Squad and The Tower. Haven't quite got the hang of those two yet. The Developer pack was pretty cool with the 'museum' and shooting range/arena. I liked the little challenges. Diablo 3: Season 29 - Working on the conquests for this season. Completing one will finish the Destroyer chapter for me, but it's taking a little time.
I'm still working on my second run of Baldur's Gate 3 with the Ghost Recon team in Act 3. The two big bads of the chapter before the final boss went down like chumps. For one of them, without spoilers (you know the one), I didn't even need to stop the chant, because I just had so many actions with each member of my team. I've been playing less of BG3 now though, because I already did a pretty thorough run of Act 3 the first time around, as opposed to Acts 1 and 2 where I left a lot of content behind with my first character.
I beat 30XX. It's very good. I don't think it's as good as 20XX. The upgrade system is significantly more complicated to understand for basically no discernible benefit. There was also one major problem with 20XX, which was that, as a roguelike, you could see the seams in the level generation and easily identify the same pieces of the levels way too quickly, as opposed to something like Streets of Rogue or Vagante where you could play for over a hundred hours before it feels like you've seen these exact levels too many times. 30XX did not address this problem. So in the end, it's more 20XX, but it's not better 20XX. It's a shame, because I know the developers spent a lot of time trying to make this a substantial sequel, and the art style is improved at least, but this feels like a lateral move. Play it if you liked 20XX and wanted more.
I've also been playing Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. Similar to that 30XX review, I think this is a step back from Mimimi's predecessor games, Shadow Tactics and Desperados III. It's still great; it's just that those games did it better. I'm in Act 3 (of 3), and this game's got ideas, but only some of them seem to work, and most of them feel like they're worse than the more linear design of the other games. It's also a bummer that this is Mimimi's swan song, as the developer is dissolving after this. Play it if you liked their other games and wanted more.
Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana on PS4. I’m really enjoying although, I think this game is a bit too long for an action RPG.
Modern Ys games, have a really satisfying and extremely fast paced combat system, and this is no exception. Story wise, though, it only gets interesting in the last third of the game.
I’m on the final chapter right now, looking forward finishing the game next week.
Not all but some do. It depends on the developer. I think there is a website that lists which games need to download additional data. Just search for it.
Half right. They all need to be installed, as in run from the hard drive and not directly off the disc. Some games require you to also download even more content, as in, the disc doesn’t have all the data needed to run the game.
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