There are worse, but yea, they’re fucking annoying
Anyone knows a good Android phone (brand) that works for daily usage and doesn’t spy on you?
And don’t recommend things like GrapheneOS and shit, they’re nice, but clearly not usable because you’re locked off too many apps, and end up still using Google
Ah, I don’t game on my phone so I wouldn’t know about that, but all of my banking apps work and while I don’t normally use streaming services, I just downloaded and tested Netflix and Hulu and both loaded and took me to a login screen. I only actually logged in to Hulu because I don’t have a Netflix account, but I think it’s safe to assume it would’ve worked
Can’t use mobile payment for one, then apps with integrity checks often block me. Might be highly related to the fact that I downloaded from Aurora instead of P Store, but yea I’m pretty sure some other are blocked as well.
I have a Google account in another country than the one I’m living in and a lot of apps are not accessible this way for example… might be my fault as well, I know
I heard bank apps are often an issue. I didn’t test it personally
My government 2FA can’t work on those OSs. Could get a physical device that shows the code, but that’s nowhere near as practical. Without that 2FA I can’t pay online, check mail from the government, login to my bank, move my adress, change my phone plan. Everything is set up through the 2FA, which is convenient as fuck, and super safe, but requires either Apple or Android.
Why would it be dystopian? Governments provide services and financial aids that also require security and safe authentication of ID. Actually, identity rights protection is the main thing governments provide.
“People shop for groceries online with government vouchers”. Doesn’t sound wild to me at all. It is the most basic possible social security program in the 21st century. There’s a difference between government way is the only way, and government offers a way for those who can’t otherwise access basic human need. 2FA and MFA is basic security, without any context it is not any more or less dystopian than a bank, a phone carrier or Google providing MFA.
Here in Denmark we need the government 2FA to pay for our stuff online. It’s an extra identity check on the credit card to make sure the card hasn’t been stolen. We don’t do government vouchers here, because we have a very good safetynet based on a salary from the government if we’re jobless. Kinda like UBI, but you only get it if you don’t have a job, so not entirely UBI. The rate isn’t anything good, but it’s enough to survive.
Our 2FA is used for by far most things. Like if I want to login on my phone carriers website, I’ll use the 2FA. Need to check up on my taxes? 2FA. Sign legal documents? 2FA. The way it works is, I’ve chosen a username which I write on the website login page, no password is used here. Then I open the 2FA app, login, grant access. If I try to login to a website on anything else than my phone, I need to scan a QR code displayed on the website aswell. This way I only need to remember the password for the 2FA and my username. We haven’t had any issues with security in this system in the 4,5 years it’s been online.
Where is that in their revenue streams? Nearly all of their profit comes from selling hardware and services.
You could argue they profit off insecure default settings, such as having Google as the default search engine or analyzing Siri recordings or how they use aggregated usage data, but to date I’m not aware of Apple either profiting directly off data it collects from users, or selling that data to third-parties.
Selling ads or user data is nowhere in their business model. They don’t need to, and the trust they risk losing from doing so is a powerful detractor. They’re not perfect, but as far as corporations go they could be much, much worse. They’re not comparable to Google in terms of privacy at all.
Turns out the answer is No, Apple doesn’t sell your data to third-party advertisers. The Cupertino giant possesses the exclusive rights of showing you ads on the App Store and other apps. This means your data is used by Apple to show ads, but not sold to any other advertisers…
1: Google’s entire business model includes selling your data and activity and advertise to you based on that. They have been sued for lying about this and had to settle.
2: Yes, this is directly stated in the setup screen for devices as on by default, which you can opt-out from then or at any time.
3: Let’s get mad at them for doing that when they actually do it.
4: Not sure there are many “rabid” users anymore, or at least here anyway. But there’s a difference between defending a company and flat out calling bs on an bs accusation.
I do not understand why people like making up reasons to hate on a corporation when there are so many other legitimate reasons to hate that corporation instead.
I bought this game day 1, put about 20 hours in and set it down.
Picked it up again three months ago and have not set it back down. Best game I have ever played. I’m a sucker for lore and mission content and this game just does not fail to deliver.
I know it had a rough launch and I don’t want that to be acceptable, but god damn this game is just so good. Like, so fucking good. Despite the launch I have to give it to them, they fixed it and it is just endlessly amazing
It’s outstanding, but even right now at its best it still isn’t perfect.
I’m very, very much looking forward to what they can eventually do using UE5 as the base in an era with generative AI to fill out the edges.
When the polish (pun intended) is there, the game is beyond everything else. But when you end up just a bit past the edges of where it holds your hand, it quickly loses the veneer, which is the key difference vs something like a Rockstar open world (but also very different budgets and aims).
There’s a handful of studios I think will adapt especially well to the future of game development, and CDPR is one of them.
Because it is going to be possible to have CP 2077 main scenario style interactions across an entire open world within the next decade. And who better to curate that experience than the people delivering it in a diagonal slice?
Why take sides if both are shit. Apple with their stupidly controlled walled garden VS Epic thinking they can buy their way into infinite reach everywhere. I’m rather pleased they didn’t agree with each other, because their cooperation seems even worse than them acting as separate entities.
I’d take an Apple loss over an Epic one any day here. Apple’s walled garden philosophy has permanently damaged the tech literacy of an entire generation, and the fact that ~half of all people that want to use a smartphone to do things simply can’t just install a FOSS application downloaded from Github to do the thing is an atrocity. Apple getting away with it also emboldens Google to make their phones/tablets into “gadgets” instead of “computers” with stuff like file permissions policies (that became so restrictive that the devs for Syncthing simply gave up on Android as a platform).
Meanwhile, Epic’s greatest evil that affects me is that I don’t play some video games because they’re exclusive to Epic’s store, and also some video games are worse because it “just makes too much financial sense” for AAA devs to release UE5 slop. Operating systems and programs are more important than video games, and video games as a medium are more restricted by stuff like what Apple’s doing than what the AAA devs do to generate shareholder value.
I managed to never drop a penny on Epic. The game launcher relaunch with all the propoganda put me in a state of “voting with my dollar” where I decided I’d give it a year or two before I tried out their storefront. Then when they decided to sick all the fortnite kids on Apple in this pathetic attempt to get attention on their case, I was like nope never buying a thing. Apple of course, can also eat my ass
The guidelines are also likely in place to avoid mention of previous reports of misogyny at the studio. Posts from Game Science CEO Féng Jì including sexualised and misogynistic language were reported on in 2020, while IGN also reported on the studio’s history with sexism.
I’ll never understand people jumping to play unfinished games. There’s no way most of those 100k people are actually going to participate in the ea feedback / qa process, so all they’re achieving by playing early is spoiling the game for themselves with an inferior version. It’s not like this is made by an inexperienced studio that might keep it in ea indefinitely neither, you literally just need to wait a year to play it when it’s released. /r
The first game was amazing. This one really doesn’t feel unfinished as-is though. There’s likely to be tons of balance changes, and I’m sure there will be bug fixes and more performance optimization updates to come… It’s still super fun, why wait
When I was younger and had more time to not worry about merely existing, I used to enjoy chasing the updates and trying to find every glitch and exploit and do as much silly shit as possible before patches went live.
Guess the first one was even worse than this one at this stage of development, but nobody knew about the game yet. I’m still waiting for the finished product (as I did with the first one), I don’t want to spoil me.
Some art will probably be replaced too. I remember Charon in the original hades had his generic robed character portrait replaced with a better one. Zagreus even complimented him on his new look when it was added to the game, which was a nice touch.
Yes, it’s unfinished, but my experience with the original Hades is that Supergiant knows how to make sure their product is at a certain level of polish before making EA available. I haven’t played much, but they seemed to hit the mark again.
You’re getting downvoted but I agree. The first game is one of my most played on Steam and I was invited to the technical test for the second. But I probably won’t be buying it any time soon. I absolutely hate the trend of buying unfinished products. While this developer is most likely not taking advantage, so many others do. Why should we pay money to beta test your game???
I’ve purchased a fair number of early access games from indie developers.
For me the benefit is that it’s often cheaper during EA, so I get it at a discount, and it already feels like a complete game worth the price I’m paying. I know they are actively working on adding more to it, and having more things added to the game for me to explore extends its lifespan for me. So I get more enjoyment out of it than I would waiting for 1.0, at a cheaper price.
For small developers it gives them the funds to continue development, and feedback that helps with game balance.
Because they get to play it early. That’s it. I played BG3 early and still had a lot of fun replaying Act 1 when it came out.
The studio gets a number of things, as well. While direct feedback is small, that is still valuable as they could never test that many hardware and software variants. They also get automated data from the software phoning home on crashes if that’s enabled. And they get an influx of cash in the last few months of development as their sales spike gets a bit flattened. It’s a winning strategy if you don’t have the funds for a huge marketing blitz to drive initial sales.
I understand the sentiment and I generally agree with you but I think I can make a case for Hades as an exception.
I picked up the first one in ea because I was thirsty for a new roguelike and some friends raved about it enough to me, and it was already a great game. The changes that came over the period I played were additive in the sense that they just opened more options in a game that already felt complete to me (mostly anyways, but more on that in a sec). But to defend it I can’t just say “oh well it felt like a finished game” there also needs to be a tangible benefit to playing it in early access. And there was! The early access versions of the game included meta banter between the narrator and Zagreus, little jokes about new things appearing or things that should be there but aren’t, references to the fact that pieces of the story’s scaffold were still being set up. It sounds small but it was just more of the wonderful character charm that oozes from every corner of that game and I actually kind of missed it a little bit once the full release came. Anyways I haven’t picked up Hades 2 yet (been making more of an effort to clear my backlog lately), but I’m thinking about it. And as far as the ostensible “point” of early access—community feedback and income to support development—Supergiant has given me ample reason to trust that they’ll make it worth it for me as a player if I don’t want to wait for the polished final product.
A Supergiant game in Early Access is more finished than most fully-released triple-A titles.
Plus, as with the first Hades, they work the continued development into the narrative of the game.
What made you think I want people to quit having fun? If anything it would be more fun to play once it’s finished, and it’s not like there’s a shortage of games to play in the meanwhile.
Edit: I just want people to give more thought into the games they play than “whatever’s on top of steam today”. Just because it became available now doesn’t mean you have to play it right away.
I understand your point but you can also be satisfied with an early access game for what it had when you played regardless of later improvements. Valheim is a great example of this: you’ll be hard pressed to find someone that wasn’t satisfied with it, despite being unfinished.
There’s no way most of those 100k people are actually going to participate in the ea feedback / qa process
On first launch it asks if you’re willing to have your play data submitted. So even if people don’t actively send feedback they are still providing data about what systems/weapons/upgrades they engage with more or less, how successful their run is with any given weapon or upgrade, how frequently they win or lose in a given fight, etc.
That was just part of it. The entire tech sector massively retracted after the boom it saw during COVID, which is also responsible for the sudden enshittification of so many different products/services all at once.
Yup. They can’t take out interest-free loans to pay off their almost-interest-free loans. So now they’re scrambling to save money and build value the old fashioned way.
People with lots of money want even more money. Less employees means less money that has to be paid out which means more money in the short term. Makes line go up for a while. Makes suits happy.
The only thing happening in the industry is the same thing happening in every industry and most of the first world:
The wealthy owners and executive leader roles have learned that COVID, COVID supply lines, interest rates, ‘consumer sentiment’, and inflation, are all very easy scapegoats that both the public and investors will easily buy as reasons for lowering product quality and availability, while also firing employees, squeezing the non-fired ones to death, and raising prices. This has lead to almost 2 straight years of corporations showing record profits (even adjusting for the inflation that they are largely responsible for in the first place).
This downward spiral will continue until some force with nearly as much power pushes back.
This is typically and ideally a representative government in the form of regulation or taxation. But the US government has suffered decades of regulatory capture and congressional gridlock.
So the only other potential option is a large amount of highly populated unions. Which have to fight against nearly 100 years of media and political demonization and nearly 150 years of ‘american independent attitude’.
The perfect modern system has all 3 parties; unions, government, and corporations, equally strong and antagonistic. Just as the perfect modern government would have the executive, legislative, and judicial branches equally strong and antagonistic. Neither could be much farther from the case here.
Stronger bigger unions. Weaker smaller corporations. And a government that actually functions. All are necessary to fix our current shit show.
It already happened, at least on Mediatonic (Fall Guys), a subsidiary. They axed lots of game designers, the UI/UX designer, some other people and even the person who made all the promo art
I’ve been loving BattleBit Remastered lately. It’s cheap, fun as hell, and the very small dev team has been very active and responsive. I bought 3 more copies to give to friends so we could squad up.
Dotage just released, it's a relaxing boardgame / city builder made by a single guy over the span of 9 years. It's very addicting in that "one more turn" way, if you're into these types of resource management games.
Factorio and Rimworld have kept me entertained several thousand houers each. Hands down the best value for money on steam. Even beat out free to play games ;)
Haven’t touched factorio but played Rimworld. If you value your time don’t buy rimworld, it is the most addictive game I’ve ever played. It’s a great game don’t get me wrong but I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and played it for less than 3 hrs. You just get sucked in like a void.
The competition! lol! Activision is going to put out 2 games this year. Whatever will we play now that these 2 games are owned by a platform holder?
You are correct though that there are a million cool ass games you can play right now and put your money in the pockets of people who make THINGS instead of people who make value for shareholders.
Not to detract from your argument (I agree completely), but indie game devs not only make actual games, but they tend to pour passion into them rather than a formula.
If you’re into metroidvanias (platformers where you gain abilities over the course of the game, expanding gameplay and allowing you to access new areas in earlier zones) there are lots of really good indie titles. Hollow Knight is the reference, both Ori games are awesome. Dead Cells is also worth a try if you’re into fast-paced action games, though it’s more of a platformer rogue-lite.
I’m really enjoying Valheim lately. It’s similar to Minecraft in a lot of ways, but leans a little more into RPG elements with leveled skills. There’s a bit more of a story, heavier focus on combat, and NPCs to interact with (though I haven’t reached that point myself).
I just finished playing Cocoon. It was short-but-sweet - it took me two evenings to finish, so probably in the 5-7 hours range - but it was one of the most interesting and engaging puzzle games I've played in a long time. What's especially fascinating to me is that its controls are so simple - everything is done with one analogue stick / WASD and a single interact button - and it's a very linear game, yet it still feels so engaging to play. It's from the lead designer of Limbo and Inside, so it has pedigree.
I played it via Game Pass (ha...) so it's hard for me to say what the value proposition is like. It certainly isn't going to give you the most time for your money, and it doesn't really have much in the way of narrative or themes, at least beyond abstract ones. But it has a gorgeous aesthetic and some fantastic puzzles.
yeah, it had solo. you’d case the area by yourself while 3 bots stayed behind, until alarms triggered. you could also configure who the bots were and what their loadout was
It does, but as far as I know PD3 still requires an online connection for single player. I've read issues of people lagging in single player, that's crazy.
same way they monetized Payday 2 since it was already pretty live-service-esque in it’s monetization, at least on PC. if they wanted to, they could have just added a battlepass with limited cosmetics alongside the steam marketplace cosmetics of Payday 2
The fact that the same user reinstalling the game counts as 2 installs makes this doubly absurd. The decision is already baffling by itself but the idea that you could take a financial hit for an install that didn't net you any additional income is... Jesus.
You’re not going to find a weapons maker with an unproblematic background (part of the problem with sourcing arms for your SRA meetup) but IMI certainly has a bad one.
They’ve also got a number of totally iconic weapons though. Separate the art from the artist and all that.
Of the lines I draw in my gun purchasing decisions (you’re right they’re all war profitiers), IWI and the like is the only one that I actively disuade people from.
That being said, the engineering history nerd in me is easily compelled to learn about design philosophies
Rami Ismail is Dutch but obviously cares about this topic. And when he seems to feel a particularly high level of self loathing, he talks about it online
The best times I had with any PVP shooter were always in the middle of the day on weekdays. It was always a bunch of working age guys like myself and that was the only time they had to play. Dudes were always friendly, games were always fun. 3pm Eastern hit and the fun was over, if it was Friday you were done playing for the weekendb unless you stayed up really late, even then, it was never as good.
I blame matchmaking and the death of the server browser. Having a regular server you’d join to play for fun, rather than every game being an arranged esports sweat fest really, was the peak of FPS multiplayer.
Being able to host your own game and tweak the rules however you like is a feature that’s sadly lacking from most console games nowadays, Halo 3 was the peak with Forge
Yep. Joining your favorite TF2 server on a Saturday afternoon and seeing that half of the server playing sandvich heavies, doing a conga line, having a full on philosophical discussion in the spectator chat, or annoying the engineers as a group of spycrabs was peak gaming
Edit : also trying to make the highest tower of players by jumping on each other (until some guy inevitably pulls up with a ulapool caber and blows up everyone)
I was anticipating Killing Floor 3 which was a killer PvE in first 2 games, but third one was ass during beta so they postponed it until they fix stuff. KF is one of more fun PvE games out there.
KF2 has some amazing animations for guns handling (and great feeling when shooting) that still hold up to this day. Such a shame that they ruined the art direction with all the shiny shit.
You see, this community just really hates PvP for some reason. Apparently playing games with other people rather than with yourself is an inconceivable concept to some. Unless it‘s coop that is. And I too love a good coop experience but PvP is quite literally the mother of all game types so it‘s strange to see how much hate it gets in this particular corner of the internet.
you know I generally do not like pvp but I would not mind something like shadowbane resurfacing. With the city building and minimal rewarding of pvp it was not bad despite the fact that once you left the gates of one of the three safe npc cities you had snipers galore. Yeah most player cities were dicks but there was a few guilds that actually tried to make something for people to visit (of course then they got player griefers coming in to)
Its a competitive shooter/moba, basically none of the game would remain if it was transitioned into a PvE game.
There arent AI bots sprinkled in, there’s just troopers and jungle camps, which either dont move or walk in a straight line down their lane. They aren’t meant to be a challenge, theyre just tools for gaining souls and creating map pressure.
PvP is only rage inducing when you let it be. Mute whiny people and just enjoy yourself.
the game is a moba, the pve sections are there to facilitate pvp play, like farming and map control.
id be pretty down for a coop pve shooter in the style of the old hero sieges from wc3 though: fighting off waves and waves of creeps until you get strong enough to push into their base while defending key objectives.
I love the concept of tower defense games where you essentially deal with waves of stronger and stronger enemies. Or Killing Floor with same concept, but in form of first person shooter. Games like this are super fun and entirely devoid of stupid sweaty pros that fuck up every PvP game ever.
Witcher 3 did it really well by having the “end of the world” stuff being centered around Ciri, and Geralt is just kind of along for the ride and isn’t really entirely sure what is happening, and his impact on whether she succeeds is rooted in whether he supports her as a father figure. Most of the game is Geralt not really having any idea that this end of the world stuff is happening to Ciri at all, until near the end.
On the other hand, it would be nice to have an RPG with lower stakes. Like I’ve always imagined a modern-day RPG where you have to do things like scrounge through your couch for change to buy a soda. The mundane RPG.
I feel that. I’ve been playing satisfactory since way before 1.0 released, and my head canon was “Boring Interplanetary Camp Job”. but when 1.0 came out suddenly I have to sAvE tHe WoRLd too. gah.
It’s one of the great things about Deep Rock Galactic, in so many ways there’s very little story other than deep lore, and the Dwarves aren’t saving the world, they’re getting drunk and doing their dayjobs.
I didn’t really have any kind of urgency based on the story, but I do think the story fell short of being a good story.
Spoiler warning: Satisfactory endgame and story
spoilerThey built up so much with the aliens talking to the pioneer and Ada acting as a translator, then towards the end it just stops happening. Then you build a ship and the story is done. Most anticlimactic ending for such a huge game
Funnily enough The Witcher 3 is one of the games I always think of for the trope of not following the plot. Often I think of the ludonarrative dissonance specifically between Gestalt’s paternal drive to find and protect Ciri Vs Gwent.
For large scale, AAA open world games, I mostly think of Breath of the Wild, which transparently sets itself up as being about taking as long as you need to get strong enough to save the world and Red Dead Redemption 2, which doesn’t care about the stakes of the world.
I sometimes can’t wrap my head around the fact that Witcher 3, BotW and RDR2 were each two years apart. I don’t feel any open world game has occupied the cultural space those games did since.
I wrote a short dnd campaign (4 or 5 sessions) with the main NPC who framed the adventure being a self important egomaniac, and the only world they saved was his world-sized ego. Making that NPC trusted by the players and breaking that trust by seeing the actual stakes of the adventure was a pretty neat idea, and it would have been a good start to my dming.
Unfortunately i ate the “save the world” pill and binned that idea for a shitty campaign about saving the world and it died the classic death of all campaigns: scheduling.
I think I might eventually run that game when I get back into DMing or start with a new group.
Are you DMing online or in the real world? I got to play a single campaign (well part of one) of Traveller until the DM didn’t have time for us anymore (because he was getting back into his actual job of being a military officer - go figure) and to say that I enjoyed it immensely was an understatement. I had a great time both learning how these games work and trying to find the limits of what’s possible. I’d love to do this again sometime.
I can only tolerate in person games, or hybrid games in the case where we live close enough to meet up only once in a while. But could play mote consistently online
Well, if you ever change your mind or need one additional player online on a short notice, even for a single session (perhaps for a specific NPC that you would normally play yourself), consider sending me a message.
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