tiramichu

I’m basically resigned to pay whatever it costs.

I backed the original Oculus Rift, loved it, then felt quite betrayed when Ocuclus sold. And since I moved fully off Windows it became a useless paperweight anyway.

I’ve been waiting years and years for the right device in terms of vendor, ecosystem and support, so I’m just going to have to save my pennies.

Can’t blame you.

It’s a shame we didn’t get to see the feverish launch of an amazingly priced Linux game machine we should have got without the RAM and storage crisis, but circumstances are what they are.

Personally I’m still interested in the frame because I really really really want a decent VR headset that works with Linux and is nothing to do with Meta.

These days I get my fix from Minecraft

I can put time on projects that are involved and take a lot of effort, but the goals I set are all my own and purely creative, like “I want to design a trans-dimensional redstone teleporter device” or “I want to build a beautiful flower forest”

It’s gaming time that is self-directed and on tasks that are more than just busy-work.

And it’s on a server that I self-host at home for me and a few friends - so it can’t be taken away :)

Indeed.

As someone who has sunk a lot of time into MMOs from Ragnarok Online to FFXIV, respecting your time is the one single thing that MMOs as a genre are intrinsically prohibited from doing.

MMOs are predicated on the notion of progression and levelling up and getting stronger in comparison to other people, and to achieve that goal they must introduce hurdles a d roadblocks to progression that can only be overcome through application of time.

Level grinding, rare drops, equipment quests. All these things must be present, and must cumulatively take time measured in months and in years - otherwise the differentiation between weak and strong disappears, and so with it the ‘need’ to keep playing on which the game is predicated.

Time-sinks are THE most fundamental genre-defining feature of MMOs.

I’m sure your mental health is doing a lot better after getting out of Fortnite.

Possibly yes, though that’s the lowest age category and only bumps games up to a PEGI 7.

I think the logic is fenerally sound, because as begnign as that mechanic can be, there really shouldn’t be things in games which encourage or force you to come back to the game on a specific schedule, or punish you if you don’t.

This.

It almost never gets better later, in anime. It goes the other way around.

When live-action TV shows get better in second seasons, it’s often because the acting cast find their groove and learn how to play their character, and the writers learn how to produce scripts that work for them.

Anime largely doesn’t have this.

In anime it often starts strong because you have the excitement of new characters to meet, a cool new world to learn about, a great premise, some looming mystery. But once all that’s done with it fizzles out.

Sometimes it doesn’t even last a season before it takes a dive. And it’s because all the writer really had was a grab bag of cool ideas, and not really a story. And once that initial excitement is over there’s nothing left.

My wisdom is “always put a white outline around black subtitles”

Sure, for real.

Of course, it isn’t like you can’t build yourself a small PC. I’ve got a build in a Fractal Design Terra with a beefy GPU, and that thing is barely bigger than a shoebox.

But building small is even more daunting than building large, so IMO it ties into the same angle of people wanting something that is premade and a product that just works, right down to the SteamOS operating system it ships with.

They can’t, and they won’t.

The way I see it, the people the Steam Machine is meant for are these:

1. People who are sick of the increasingly predatory nature of console gaming and want to switch to PC, but don’t have the confidence or knowledge to build their own

2. People who are similarly sick of Windows bullshit and want to try Linux, but don’t have the confidence or knowledge to do it themselves

3. People with plenty of cash who fancy an extra gaming PC to put under the TV

4. Valve fans who will buy anything Valve releases, no matter what

IMO it’s not trying to compete against consoles directly, and especially not on price, it’s trying to be an alternative to people who are already sick of consoles.

A person with a hammer? Why does it need to be difficult :P

Or just go with direct address

“If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”