Does anyone else remember bringing home free trials on floppy disks? Like you get the first level of Wolfenstein or Commander Keen and you just play that over and over because you don’t have any money.
A bit before my manufacture date but as a kid there used to be CD ROMs in cereal boxes which had games like Tonka, Hot Wheels, Timon and Pumba, Rainbow Fish, etc. Those were hype.
It’s definitely nicer if there’s far less visual emphasis to it, like having the score be in small font rather than slammed in the middle of the result screen.
Same applied to the original Medal of Honor, though I never understood why some of those grades were given, I think they had more to do with where most of your shots landed?
So, the trap of modern game setups is that there is a lot of super high powered hardware out there- but unless you’re driving 4K monitors at 120hz+, or striving for super fast 360hz+ refresh rates for competitive gaming, you don’t need any of it. And people often get too caught up in the flashy new latest-and-greatest to recognize what’s a good deal and what’s just showing off.
Define your use case. What’s your desirable budget? What kind of games do you want to play, do you want to do VR, what kind of display do you plan on using. Because while it’s easy to drop $2800+ on hardware these days (like I did), it is still very possible to end up with a $900-1k machine that is super capable at 1440p and can run most all games you throw at it for at least another 5 years. Dpending on what exactly you want to do with it, prioritizing certain areas of hardware over others will pay off.
But recently PLEX says they will be blocking Hetzner hosting in the next few weeks. I’ve been considering moving to Jellyfin for a while, but I’m worried they will do the same thing in future.
Jellyfin: Completely autonomous of anything outside.
Plex: Authenticates with Plex servers so you need an external account
Jellyfin is a fully self-sufficient software not calling outside.
Jellyfin has no tracking, phone-home, or central servers collecting your data. We believe in keeping our software open and transparent. We’re also not in the media business, so the only media you see is your own.
Fortunately I live in a country where they don’t care about piracy, but maybe I misspelled the question, I meant “sure” it can’t contain some kind of virus.
And I guess you won the lawsuit? On Reddit I remember that people would commonly say they got those law suits but people would always suggest “don’t do anything about it because they were just warnings”.
Yeah, “don’t do anything” is horribly advice, at least in Germany.
I managed to avoid the lawsuit by showing the lawyers who wanted to fleece me that I had legal representation and collected enough evidence in my favor to make it difficult.
All they had was a file and an IP address.
It was a back-and-forth of letters between me, them and the court, which eventually refused to formally open a trial.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a complete iso, but a part of the “Linux ISO” is enough. Since your still helping others complete their “ISO” illegally.
Yes, I hired a lawyer for consultation.
Since I was very poor at the time, I could get the cost for it reimbursed from the state, after laying bare my finances in front of a judge.
As for the seriousness, the legal firm moving against me had opened a case before a court in Munich (500km from where I lived) and I had to plead my case in writing to the court.
Next step after a lot of legalese back and forth would have been a summons before the court in person, which didn’t happen. The letters just stopped.
In the end, I paid 60€ for fees and postage. They had wanted me to pay 2000€ to settle and my lawyer told me if it goes before a judge, worst probable outcome would have been 600€ in court and lawyer fees.
Yes it’s inexcusable in my opinion that they want over 1000€ for a single movie. 600€ is still a lot of money but asking so much more than the “damage” is obviously worth is just…
I heard of some people who actually paid the fine they were asked for, since they didn’t know better (it wasn’t them but an exchange student from a country where torrenting media isn’t an issue, or so they said).
This is what you probably already know but honestly, the best way is to know someone with an invite and if you don’t know someone irl, try to get involved in an online community.
Another way is to watch for open sign ups. Some private trackers have applications, like MyAnonamouse. Once you’re in, check out the forums for invite requirements to other private trackers. You often need to climb a few ranks to gain access to the invite sections of the forum.
Open sign-ups is the way. Trackers with open sign-ups will usually be a bit more lenient on ratio and rules, in my experience, so they’re also a good place to learn how private trackers work without getting kicked out for a silly mistake.
Majesty (Majesty 2 is okay, but lacks the charm of the original, but YMMV) - you run a kingdom full of heroes. The catch? You don't command the heroes. They have their own AI and goals and you have to offer incentives and place the necessary buildings appropriately to both enable and encourage them to do their jobs of saving the kingdom.
Ronin - a stealth/platformer. Combat is turn-based. No, combat is not mechanically separate from the stealth OR the platforming. Relatively short but very fascinating.
Pawnbarian - Roguelike, but movement and combat is done by chess rules.
Exanima. Combat is based entirely around physics/momentum and positioning. It's hard to get the hang of, but is immensely satisfying once you get your "He's starting to believe" Matrix moment and successfully block a few attacks in a row.
Crusader Kings 3. You know those map-painting Grand Strategy games, where the goal is to conquer other territories? One of those, but you're running a noble dynasty whose fortunes rise and fall, even passing between the overlordship of different countries and kingdoms. A lot of personality. I guess it's not as innovative as it once was, since it's spawned imitators at this point. Hm.
Ring of Pain. It's... hard to describe.
Phasmophobia. Multiplayer only. You hunt ghosts. Not like, 'combat' hunt ghosts, like 'You need to find evidence of ghosts' hunt ghosts. But the ghosts definitely hunt you back - in a much more malicious way.
Death Stranding. Walking simulator. No, not like 'You don't do anything but hold down the walk button', like 'You need to keep your balance while carrying things' walking simulator. Immensely weird.
Star Trek: Bridge Crew. Multiplayer only (at least practically speaking). Each person plays a separate member of the titular bridge crew, and cooperation to achieve even simple tasks is key.
Gods Will Be Watching. A series of puzzle scenarios about calculated risk, failure, and learning the rules anew each time.
I strongly object to the characterization of Death Stranding as a walking simulator. Walking place to place is core to the experience for maybe one quarter of the game. Once you get to the largest area and continue unlocking new tools and features, you spend very little time walking. It also dismisses combat, which I felt was considerably more prevalent than I expected.
I feel like I spent a good portion of my time walking and finding ways across rough terrain even after all the fancy gear was unlocked. The motorcycle could get you maybe half the way, usually.
I mean, at least until the zip-lines. Those ruined the game. Honestly, the rebuildable roads were a bad inclusion as well. Sitting on top of a hill, looking down at the streams and terrain around you, figuring out the best route with your tools, was peak satisfaction in that game.
Yeah, that’s fair. The first time you go to any new site there is walking involved along with everything else, but I still think calling it a walking simulator is reductive, since it just one tool in an ever-expanding toolbox.
Maybe it’s better to call it a scifi delivery simulator (including factions of delivery addicts you have to fight because they keep trying to take your things).
Majesty (Majesty 2 is okay, but lacks the charm of the original, but YMMV) - you run a kingdom full of heroes. The catch? You don’t command the heroes. They have their own AI and goals and you have to offer incentives and place the necessary buildings appropriately to both enable and encourage them to do their jobs of saving the kingdom.
I loved that you could build temples and get specialty priests for 5 different gods, but never more than two in one level, because some of the gods were opposed to others, including the one I never used because they were monotheists and I didn’t want to give up all other types of priests.
Also that every hero type had their own priorities and preferences and would do what they preferred barring a significant bounty on something else. Also that Rogues could fuck you over if a hero died and you wanted to use the resurrection spell on them because a rogue near where they died might just rob their grave.
Star Trek: Bridge Crew. Multiplayer only (at least practically speaking). Each person plays a separate member of the titular bridge crew, and cooperation to achieve even simple tasks is key.
Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator did it before that, in 2010. ST: Bridge Crew is more or less “Artemis but with Star Trek branding”. Artemis just released a remake/sequel-sort-of-thing a bit over a month ago (called Artemis Cosmos, though it’s had a…rocky…launch so far) that’s a complete rewrite from the ground up.
And when I say they did it first, I mean to the point that some of the reviews describe Artemis by likening it to being a member of the bridge crew on the Enterprise, because there wasn’t a game like that on the market.
Gods Will Be Watching. A series of puzzle scenarios about calculated risk, failure, and learning the rules anew each time.
Is your brother making games? If yes : there are several easy to use game engine like mentalo.app, Godot, gdevelop and such.
If your brother is mostly playing, then anything by Nintendo would be a good idea. Old consoles are cheap and if you have the Switch there are a lot of really good game on it.
Edit: And I second Minecraft or the free version (minetest I think)…
While I do play Roblox (because we don't have a federated alternative for it yet) I had concerns about it - moderation, playerbase maturity issues (yes, while its being taken over by young adults the majority is still unmatured), updates that the community doesn't want, and "racism" against other platforms e.g. Linux. You're right about how they exploit the creators.
Do fedi or Foss games really need a roblox alternative ? I’m not sure… Do roblox teach you how to make games? Well it teaches you do build games for roblox that’s it. Is roblox the only place to find games for kids, surely not.
I feel like there’s two parts. On the one hand, Larian’s engine is fantastic and allows really creative and diverse approaches to their puzzles. There’s a number of fights that feel more like puzzles than fights, because they’re nearly impossible if you just go in spells blazing, but not nearly as threatening with a little preparation. They’ve honed that engine through DOS & DOS2, so it’s much more mature than you’d get if this were a pure derivative of BG1/2. The first time I lit Shadowheart up with Spirit Guardians and dashed her around a battlefield reaping the canon fodder…I actually giggled with glee.
Then there’s the storytelling. My journal is filling up with quests & side quests, but I don’t think any of them have been the “Kill 5 orcs,” “gather 10 blood moss,” or “deliver this McGuffin” variety. The NPCs you meet tend to reappear later and react differently depending on how their previous quest ended. I suppose, technically, that’s similar to going back to the same quest-giver, rising in their ‘ranks’ toward some prize, but it doesn’t feel the same. The NPCs, even the side-quest NPCs, feel like they’re woven into the overall narrative and it makes for a much more immersive experience.
I can’t imagine how much writing, animation, and voice acting had to be done to accommodate all the choices I won’t make. Even just the times some NPC voices my gender.
I agree about the quests feeling fairly good, but my hod is the jour Al itself atrocious. No way to remove/hide quests from the map. Many quests sort of remain in this “not done” quest state because completing it will have undesirable outcomes and it feels weird that I have to keep it there still
I agree, and the fact the NPCs have conversations and stories that play around you which are not automatically turning into quests for you to do (sometimes even chiding you for eavesdropping) makes the world feel much more alive and less player-centric.
You’re right, but I think OP meant almost all the games that are developed by Valve have a Linux version, meanwhile non of the games developed by CDPR has it.
Totally agree, I don’t want to have to do research before or during playing and have to consult a build guide for every level up, just so I don’t mess up my character.
Just let me fuck around, find out and do it better all over again in my own time.
Origins is definitely the best and the closest to that classic Bioware feel you like.
DA2 was polarizing but I enjoyed it. Very different from the first mechanically. Worth playing tho, IMHO.
DA:I was… not fun for me. I feel like they tried to modernize the formula and added all the worst parts of modern (at the time) games, namely HUGE time sinks for no reason because it’s not a fucking MMORPG that makes money by the hour. /deep breath Sorry, I am still a little bitter at how that game turned out. Anyways, probably worth checking out, maybe you will feel differently. But it wasn’t for me.
Dragon age 2 was insanely fun to me, i definitely played it more than origins. (Im aware I’m not in the majority with that) I thought the combat was so fun and i loved doing different play throughs with different builds in that game
2 definitely shows the issue of EA wanting to push the game out in 1.5 years. Many cut corners and a lack of assets with the repetitive maps.
I think it's the weakest entry in the Dragon Age series, and a lot of it's negative reception was because it failed to live up to expectations of DAO.
If Dragon Age 2 wasn't a Dragon Age game, it wouldn't have gotten the poor reviews it got. As a standalone game it's actually not bad.
I always recommend playing it, as it directly leads into the story of Inquisition and it has some great characters in it.
DA2 takes a different take for me when I realized that you’re playing through Varric’s retelling of the story. It kinda explains why people are falling out of the sky to join the battle and other inconsistencies.
This gets often overlooked, glad it got brought up. The entire game is an exercise in unreliable narration. Gives you a very different lens to experience the game through.
Ultima Online is a 25 year old MMO that still has the original servers running. The install is about 3GB and can run on any PC from the last 20 years. For the official servers, the player base is largest on Atlantic and you can sign up for a free Endless Journey account. PVP is only allowed in certain zones.
There are many many player run servers that fit a lot of play styles. The most populated being Outlands. That is where I mainly play as it is by far the most populated UO server, 2.5k-3k people on usually. Just beware, outside of the starting zone and towns, it is open PVP almost everywhere.
City of Heroes now has player run servers. The install is around 5GB. Homecoming is the most populated, with a lot of added content. Rebirth is less populated but tries to be the closest experience to the official servers.
Likewise, Everquest is still running, including some semi-official EQ-classic servers. Server population might be measured in hundreds – a far cry from the 500k peak in 2002.
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