Factorio, it’s fun from the first minute but you’ll still be learning new things after 1000 hours.

Give all of those things a try. None of them are “wrong”. Experiment and see what works best with the type of people you want to spend time with. Just don’t get discouraged if your success rate is low (some people just won’t be interested) and respect people’s decisions if they choose to ignore you.

Since it sounds like you are just getting into this, it may be helpful to know that Nintendo has confirmed that there will be a 2nd version of the device and it is likely to have full backwards compatibility (meaning it will play all of the games from version 1).

The release dates for this device are likely to be announced soon.

So if you can wait, you could either get the newest version or you could get the current version for a big discount.

You should be able to select the version of the game that you want. Right click, manage,… ??? I forgot the rest but it’s fairly obvious from what I remember. You can just pick the most stable build of 1.## from the drop down.

I think this is why they usually go after the people distributing the data for copywriter infringement, and not the people who use the data.

It may not be stealing, but it definitely is copywriter infringement.

The question is moot from both sides of the deal, but understanding why is important.

For something like a game, you will only ever pay approximately what you think a game is “worth”. How you determine that value is entirely up to you and should be based on your own opinions and beliefs. Therefore, if you derive value from supporting niche developers, that’s great for you and you should continue to do so as you wish. If you don’t value that quite as much, then wait for a sale price that does.

Your individual decisions will not affect the decisions of publishers and developers.

Their decisions will take into account the total profit that they think a game can provide over its lifetime. This is determined by the initial price and sales as well as future discount prices and sales. The way they estimate the potential profit of a new project is based on past data. If they see most of their sales at launch time, they will price the game accordingly. If they see more revenue over time from sales, then they will price the game accordingly. As long as they continue to hit those goals, then they will continue making products for those audiences.

Therefore, the best way to support the projects you like is to buy the game when the price justifies the value to you. That is buy it whenever you want. The only way to not support (I am purposefully avoiding the word hurt) the publisher and developer is to pirate the games.

That should be true for any company’s projects though. That’s just saying that the net present value needs to be positive. There’s no way most of their projects have been negative NPV.

Has any square Enix game in the past 5 years met their expectations?

This is usually the problem with them. They have great selling games, that always fall short of their “expectations”. I’m wondering if their expectations might be wrong.

Not to mention some (many) games include a social aspect which appeals to a significant portion of the audience (maybe not to all, but to many).

When you are done with Bob’s, you can do space exploration, or pyanodon’s if you hate yourself.

Yeah, I have to take breaks sometimes and be in the right mood. I find that I like to play more when I’m going through a boring patch at work and I need something mentally stimulating.

Everything except the losing interest part is what people love about factory games. So while they have your interest, realize that you are absolutely playing them “correctly”. But if you don’t like iterating your designs (not everyone does, and that’s OK), then these are probably not the right genre for you.

Are you completing them quickly and correctly? If you are, that might be the issue.

Try making mistakes and then undoing them, as if you mis-clicked.

Yeah, good idea. This game take up a lot of time because it is amazing and there’s soooo much to do.

If you like the dopamine hit from making something better, or fixing problems with a system, then you’ll love this game.

I think there may also be a demo, but I don’t know if that works on the steam deck. That’s totally worth checking out, but set aside 4-8 hours for the first time you play it and I recommend setting an alarm to remind yourself to eat.

I think some people set speed run records on the steam deck. Obviously, the number of pixels is lower and the processor isn’t as powerful as a desktop, so a megafactory might not work well, but should be fine for tinkering with a design.

You should see an increase, but likely small. Since the end point increased and since the curve only increases between upgrades, that means that all points before the end point must also increase. However, most of the benefit is now granted in the first half of the upgrades possible, so at your level the increase per level will be smaller than it was before.

There are a few games that you might miss out on with this method. Some devs (it’s not many) list their games at what they think is a fair forever price and will not ever offer the game at a reduced price. Again, this isn’t a lot of devs, but one notable one is Wube, makers of Factorio.

I generally agree with your method, mostly because I have a large enough backlog to be able to wait for sales, but it is also worth doing research on some devs to see if a sale will ever happen.

The section with the burning buildings and the big guy in the middle of the court yard just past the shallow water?

If that’s the section you mean, then you can safely come back after progressing the main line a little more. Getting the axe and the beating the guy on the horse are good pre-requisites. That will align the difficulty to be more consistent with the main line path.

That’s just how numbers work. Those aren’t exponential increases, they are proportional. 30% will always be 30%.

There’s no benefit to sensationalizing the math.

Is it similar to rimworld then?

Thanks, songs of syx looks interesting, what are your thoughts?

Just to clarify, other than the naming, those games aren’t related, right?

This is kind of the opposite of that idea though. This is saying that not everything put on the screen needs to be computed from the game engine. Some of the content on the screen can be inferred from a predictive model. What remains to be seen is if that requires less computing power from the GPU.

Square has had a lot of popular games past FF7. Just in the Final Fantasy series, they’ve had good success with ff9, ff10, ff12, ff14, and ff7 remakes. All of the others in the series are usually pretty well liked too. That’s just their final fantasy main line series however.

They also have Dragon Quest, Tomb Raider, Marvel’s (both good and bad), and Kingdom Hearts. They also published Nier: Automata; but I’m not sure how much that counts as their game.

All of those series have had successful and unsuccessful games, based on objective sales figures. It seems you may be thinking that SquareEnix == FF only, but that’s not really true. And sure, the FF games have a lot in common, but so do the Halo games, the CoD games, etc. That’s because they are all part of the same series and it is expected that they have similarities.

Been waiting for Steam releases of 16 and Rebirth since they launched. I’m guessing I’m not the only one.

We’re currently in the information age, which is due to silicon. In a few hundred years, this time may reasonably be called the silicon age. Society has only recently transferred to the silicon age from the previous iron age. If we don’t cause a total collapse of our society, then we will be in the silicon age for a few hundred more years, and that will likely include space colonization.

The space age you’re referring to is likely the 60s, when space exploration was beginning. A decade or two isn’t long enough to be considered an age.

That’s why we name our ages after the materials within. Material science is the foundation for almost all other physical sciences.

Subnautica has a pretty interesting world to explore. If you don’t like the survival elements, you can can turn them down or off.

Hardship space breaker had a somewhat interesting story. Not deep world building and definitely more focused on the game play, but still pretty good lore.

Another vote for the outer wilds. That’s really the best game in this area.

I didn’t realize it was so many for the epilogue. Might have to go back to now. Thanks.

The first game became significantly easier as more stuff was unlocked, so beating a round wasn’t quite so tough by the end.

I know you were exaggerating, but I think it was 10 completions that were required in total, with new stuff unlocking pretty consistently past the first, so much so that the strategy was evolving significantly between the first and the last.

Didn’t they also release a god mode version if you just wanted story as well?

This idea of triple I is going to be corrupted and backfire if it becomes organized. What I mean is that instead of great games like Stardew or Terraria (just to name 2 as examples) being labeled as triple I, we will instead get Ubisoft marketing their next open world as triple I only because it is based on a “new” IP. That new IP will likely be a warrior type character fighting for justice while assembling a crew of interesting characters to help them in their mission in a never before seen world filled with friends and foes alike… Blah blah blah.

Triple I will soon mean triple A, but for new IP. Triple I should be a designation bestowed by the community on outstanding indie games. It should be subjective and unregulated, otherwise it will lose its meaning and that’s exactly what large studio’s want.

The game used to let you do that, it was a nightmare since there wasn’t any warning when connecting pipes.

Oh, right. Duh.

Good idea, thank you.

Fluid networks don’t allow mixed fluids though. How would you mix in the tank?

The story of the present day in the first was bland. The story of the past was interesting to explore. I agree about the side quests, I skipped them entirely in the first, but some of the side quests in the 2nd were worth doing. The 2nd does a good job of listing which are side-story and which are side-fetch quests.

Game play is better, but similar. The improvements make it a fun challenge to take down the monsters piece by piece. I didn’t enjoy the game play of the first nearly as much.

The continuation of the story is good, but not as intriguing as the first. If story in the first was 10/10, this one is 8/10; so still pretty good.

If you enjoyed the first one, this one is definitely worth playing. There will also be a 3rd and having played the 2nd game will be required to understand the story.

Thanks, that’s good progress from the last update that I saw. Makes me hopeful that I can make the switch soon.

How much work is typically required? What kinds of tasks are needed?

I’m done with windows as soon as Linux can support HDR.

Even Arkane alone at that time wouldn’t be considered indie. They had done a few contract jobs for major releases, like CoD, before developing Dishonored.