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Cake day: Feb 10, 2024

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What makes you think that? It’s possible that they did it in-house, of course, but there’s no precedent for it. No previous Civ had a linux version done in-house.





Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: Denuvo Anti-tamper

Requires 3rd-Party Account: 2K Account for Online Interactions

Somebody please wake me up when these atrocities are gone. (And thanks, Steam, for making them easy to discover.)


Are you including Brave New World in that comparison? I’ve never played Civ 5 without it.


I just referred them to 5 because it was almost as good

Why do you consider Civ 6 better than 5?

Edit for anyone else wanting to answer: Please specify whether you’re including Brave New World (or Gods and Kings) in your comparison, since those expansions significantly improved upon the original Civ 5 release.




Good point. I forgot about that possibility because I don’t spend much time playing in Open mode.

The same thing tends to happen on stronghold carriers in Solo mode, I suspect because Frontier programmed the game to spawn a bunch of NPC ships eager to dock with those carriers when a mini-instance is created. You can be the only player within light years, and still have to wait several minutes for all those NPCs to leave before you can dock.

*facepalm*


Ah… Yes, it was most likely a fleet carrier, then. Those are owned by players, and not always open to the public.


Was it Elite Dangerous? Stations grant docking clearance if you’re within range when you request it; I think it’s about 7500 meters. Check out the in-game the tutorials. One of them teaches this.


Lenval Brown, who voiced the narrator in Disco Elysium, will return for Hopetown and voice a key character.

That man’s voice was amazing in Disco Elysium’s opening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZU2elURPPA


Thank you for saving me the time it would have taken to check it out. I don’t buy Denuvo games.


Between this and Skyblivion (video), perhaps I’ll get to play beautiful versions of the older games. Looking forward to it!


I hope they manage to get it complete, and good. Giving Oblivion another try (this time exploring the rest of the world instead of focusing on the boring main quest) has been on my list for a while, and improved graphics would be welcome.

That font, though… not a good choice for quickly delivering information. Mods to the rescue?


I must say I e never played Skyrim, and I didn’t know how beautiful it could be.

Modern texture packs, replacement models, and lighting mods make it even more so.

On top of that, Skyrim’s soundtrack is outstanding, and conspires with the scenery to make it a game world not easily forgotten. I’m sure I’ll be going back.


Thanks, but having finished the game with Cadence, I think I understand the mechanics.


I still haven’t managed to beat Crypt as anyone other than Cadence. I wonder if this game will be even harder.



Civ V had mediocre-to-bad gameplay on release, but was transformed into something good by the Brave New World DLC. I have read that Civ VI was similarly improved (although perhaps with a bit less success) by way of DLC.

Judging by the initial reviews of this one, it looks like a pattern is developing. I guess I’ll once again wait a few years until the “fix” DLC has been out for a while, and buy the combo pack on sale.

Unless they use Denuvo or some other anti-customer nonsense that I won’t support.


The question I’ve had since this sequel was announced: Does it use the same approach to combat skill progression as the original, where players are robbed of agency instead of encouraged to learn effective use of available tools & moves?

Eike Cramer from IGN Deutschland seems to have my answer:

The game design is annoying with forced stealth on top of a frustrating save system. That’s especially true for some of the longer story missions. On top of this, the combat mechanics are extremely inaccessible and, with their mercilessness, put far too many obstacles in the way of the players, especially at the beginning. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is nevertheless an utterly unique, ambitious and, in large parts, very good adventure. But it’s also a video game that misses important points a little too often in the gameplay details and does not respect the player’s time in certain places.

Thank you Eike, and thank you OP for posting those quotes.


I started playing this on PC, but at a certain point, it persistently crashed. A bunch of other folks reported the same problem. I guess non-Deck hardware wasn’t a priority for Valve this time.


Ever since playing and liking Tomb Raider (2013), I have noticed it being compared to Uncharted, which made me curious about the latter. However, the clips I’ve seen made Uncharted’s characters seem focused on being macho men, rather than being humans exploring dangerous environments. Is it like that throughout, or did I just randomly find video clips that happened to highlight a single minor aspect of the games?


Practically all game publishers do. Sadly, it’s the industry standard.

(By the way, you linked Steam’s subscriber agreement, which concerns Steam’s service and client software, not the games bought on Steam. Maybe you meant to link a Valve game license?)

In any case, it doesn’t matter here, because the complaint was about Steam, not Valve.


It’s not Steam’s decision to make. The statement you’re referring to is just Steam highlighting a decision made by the game publishers. Even if Steam didn’t highlight it, it would still exist, as you would see if you read the games’ license terms before paying.

Ubisoft is a game publisher. They actually make the decision that you don’t own the games you pay for.


I suggest trying out a few distros using live bootable images, and picking one you find comfortable for regular user stuff. There is no “best” for gaming; all the major desktop distros can do it just fine.


Wow. I feel like i’m really experiencing California Traffic. It’s just as bad as the real thing.

I hope California drivers aren’t as bad as the NPC drivers in this game. Any minor obstacle has a 50% chance of sending them into panic, ramming other vehicles and wedging their own into positions from which they cannot easily escape, when they could have just steered around it. It gets so laughably bad that I have sat and watched them try for 10-15 minutes at a time, wondering if they’ll ever manage to drive away.


Does it have the same skill-leveling mechanic as the first one, where (when holding a weapon) the player has about as much control of their body as a drunk standing on one stilt, and sometimes has to fight with actions failing to work at all, until they slog through hours of mind-numbing training sessions?

I wanted to like KC:D. There were parts of it that I found really appealing, but I found that mechanic bloody intolerable, so I ended up deleting it and never looking back.

Edit to elaborate:

I like games where the challenge comes from learning how to work with available tools and moves, developing my skill with them, and figuring out how to use them most effectively. Making progress that way is satisfying.

Interfering with my ability to control my character is the polar opposite of that. It has nothing to do with developing my skill, but instead just arbitrarily denies me agency. The first game does this heavily until various grind chores are endured for some period of time. No thanks. I think it’s a poor substitute for refined or nuanced combat mechanics, and I don’t find it fun.

Props to the folks who managed to have a good time with it, though. I liked other parts of the game.


If you love roguelike games, I suggest playing a great one that was directly inspired by the original: Nethack.

If you want fancier graphics, Shattered Pixel dungeon.


Yes. I loved the tension-filled atmosphere as a backdrop for not knowing what threat was going to get me, and the subtlety of the puzzle was brilliant.


Such a beautiful game.

One of my favorite parts was my first visit to the Lost Woods, and the experience of finding my way through. A darkened room and surround sound made it all the better.


Seems ironic for a project focused on access and preservation to adopt a closed messaging platform like Discord, that can and does lock people out on a whim.

I guess it might be a concession to reach as many gamers as possible. It’s an unfortunate situation, though. Maybe when we’ve stopped the killing of games, we can turn our attention to freeing ourselves from Discord.


Kind of like -ly and -hub in domain names, or -kit in software libraries? :)


I just put the installers onto a thumbdrive.

I hope you’re powering up that thumb drive every few weeks. Flash memory will lose charge if left unpowered for too long, corrupting your data.



“It is obvious to everyone: Elbrus processors are not yet at the level required to compete equally with the PS5 and Xbox, which means the solution must be unconventional.”

That unconventional approach could involve either simplifying games to the degree that Elbrus CPUs can handle (the Russian audience still has access to world-class games and would likely not play those ‘simplified’ games)

Oh, let’s not be hasty. Nintendo has had great success with underpowered consoles, and Tetris (Тетрис) is a shining example of this sort of thing. :)



You can select the text that’s over that background to make reading easier. Most of the article is below it, so you should be fine after a couple taps of Page Down.

Or use Firefox reader view, which cleans it right up. :)


The archive link:

  • Doesn’t have a tracker.
  • Works with scripts disabled (good privacy & security practice).
  • Will still be useful when nytimes.com eventually disables your gift ID or takes the article down.




I recently started a game of Pirates! When I sat down to play today, the pirates were no longer the only ones spicing up their speech with arrs and ahoys. The merchants were doing it. The military were doing it. The nobles were doing it (awkwardly). The barmaids were doing it. Even the user interface was doing it. I thought at first that it might have always been that way, and just escaped my notice, but that seemed unlikely. Next I thought I might have accidentally enabled a game option for it, but I didn't remember reconfiguring anything. Then another possibility came to mind. It seemed like a long shot, but just in case, I looked up today's date. Sure enough, today is International Talk Like a Pirate day. This 20-year-old game apparently knows it, and switched every bit of its dialogue and writing into pirate speak to honour the occasion. I love this.
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