- 0 Posts
- 36 Comments
Server browsers and dedicated servers are subjects that make me want to start with the old man “back in myyy day” style comments.
I saw somebody mention CS, which is a good one, but for me the peak was in Quake 2 because of personal circumstances like getting into overclocking and then moving to a university network connection when modems were the norm at home.
Certain servers running certain mods were awesome late-night hangouts. I have a few really fun memories of all of us coordinating to do goofy stuff rather than play whatever the game at hand was. Then somebody new would join the server and start wrecking us until we caught their attention with the text chat and got them involved too, lol.
Absolutely, and the scary part to me is how that projection includes LGBT folks also being child predators all the damn time.
It’s like they are a bunch of bisexual pedophiles who are repressed and angry, and they get jealous when they see other people giving in to the same desires. Or, as we see all the time, they assume somebody “giving in” to their homosexuality or gender dysphoria is also “giving in” to their pedophilia.
I have had this long-term tendency in my gaming platforms where I alternate between PC and console as my primary long-term focus. For example, I remember that 2019 was almost nothing but VR gaming on my PC, but in more recent years I’ve used game pass on xbox to play all kinds of titles that I wouldn’t have otherwise.
My family uses the Xbox pretty regularly still, but I think now that I can use my Linux PC from the couch (without taking over the TV) it has broken me from caring about consoles. Like, I recognize the skill of Nintendo’s developers and I know I’m going to play the mario & kart releases eventually, but I haven’t even considered getting a switch 2. I know a family member has one, so likely my first time playing Mario Kart World will be at thanksgiving, lol.
I am also a fan of emulation. I’d be content if you only ever allowed me to play my NES, SNES, and PSX roms for the rest of my life. But since Nintendo’s business model means putting their beautifully designed games only on restricted/limited hardware, it’s a better way to play some of their newer stuff too.
Already done. I dual boot at work (translated: I have a dormant win10 partition just in case, but I’m more likely to use my win10 VM in Linux) and at home I’m Linux only, having wiped my windows partition to reclaim the space within weeks of installing Linux.
I use Mint Cinnamon in both places. It’s a very polished, all in one, install and go OS. But it’s still Linux so I have the terminal available and I can find out how to fiddle with and change whatever I want.
For all manner of 2D desktop use, I find it superior to windows. Even being a very full-featured distro, when the software is made to serve the user and not 50 competing corporate priorities, you can tell. It’s so much more responsive and nice to use. (It is not flawless of course)
For gaming, I don’t play the newest stuff or multiplayer games with crazy anti-cheat, but I have not had any regrets so far. Many games have native Linux versions, probably thanks to valve and the Steam deck, but windows games running in proton have been smooth sailing for me.
I think I’ve just dealt with enough computer crap in my life that I prefer using not just Linux apps but FOSS software for as much as I can. If some game or some photo editing suite will absolutely not work in Linux or work acceptably in a VM, I am fine with it not existing in my world. I used to not find that acceptable, but now I’m over it. In a chill way though, not an angry anti-Microsoft way.
Excellent post! Any time I see one of these from you I’m going to upvote and comment just in case it gets it onto more screens.
I still haven’t tried the steam deck, but it seems like such an awesome system. I won’t be in the market for one any time soon but maybe by the time I am, there will be a Deck 2.
Even though proton is legitimately amazing, I love turning on the filter in steam that shows Linux native games in my library. There are so many of them!
And it’s not just new stuff. Plenty of old favorites have Linux versions too. All the big valve titles of course (including Alyx) and classics like all the infinity engine RPG Enhanced Editions. Being able to hang out with my family, sitting on the couch, but also playing high res Baldur’s Gate with a trackball is some real gaming comfort food.
Bethesda. Guys. Gather ‘round.
I really love your types of games. I admit I haven’t played through all of the most recent ones, but I’ve structured my PC builds around the Elder Scrolls series since Morrowind. I took 100 hours to play through Skyrim, then I took 200 hours to play through Skyrim VR. And you can tell business daddy that I even used a WMR headset to do it.
Your engine has enabled some great gaming experiences for me. I am not writing this comment to shit on your engine. Thank you for making it.
But we should all be clear with each other that to suggest it is “perfectly tuned” in any meaningful way makes you sound like you’ve lost touch with reality. I get that the dev tools and your process may be nice behind the scenes, but from the consumer side, damn no.
American here, and I am totally OK with a tiny bit of extra latency if people & companies want to move their servers to some place in Europe that actually respects freedom and people.
Though I suspect that if you’re a US company with servers located abroad, they will still make the law apply to you since you control it.
The lethality of the world in 1&2 contributed to so many memorable moments in them, for me at least.
There’s something different about figuring out step by step how it is even possible to beat the enemy that wrecked your shit as soon as you walked into the room, versus grinding out a more typical battle. I’m not saying it’s better, or that BG3 has to be that way, but it is definitely a big part of this particular series for me.
For example, I have vivid memories of running into mind flayers, and fights with certain dragons, and the demogorgon, and Kangaxx, and even the first time getting to the gnoll stronghold.
I played about 75 hours of it back in 2019. Most of the time I was driven by the same thing that drives me to spend dozens of hours in open world RPGs wandering and finding stuff before doing the main quest. It also helped that it had good VR support, and I had just played a ton of Skyrim VR that same year.
But of course in NMS, there is no main quest to return to when things on the open road get slow. And you do not have the same had designed locations and loot to stumble across.
In retrospect I can see parallels with f2p games that are just an infinite numbers-go-up grind. The game is designed such that you do the same shit forever. (If my info is out of date though, I welcome corrections)