BudgieMania
@BudgieMania@kbin.social
- Comment on Manor Lords gets its first big patch, with new taxes, animations and changes to trading 6 months ago:
nice, I'm waiting a bit to see if there's a steady stream of ongoing support before buying, but it's looking good so far
- Comment on Helldivers 2 now delisted in 177 countries 6 months ago:
I wonder how many times I will have to see a publisher significantly harm their reputation in the PC market in a yolo bet to set up their own ecosystem and store.
I thought Sony had been conservative and decided against it when their first steam releases hit but with this move it seems possible that a Sony PC ecosystem was always in the works and it just wasn't ready for those original releases. Oh well.
- Comment on Rant: Cura did the one thing a slicer shouldn't do 9 months ago:
A slicer is the program that takes a 3D model and "translates it" into the sequence of actions that the printer needs to do to create that model. It is called a slicer because 3D printers build the models in horizontal layers, or in other words, in slices.
Cura is one of the slicer programs available. There are many, divided between slicers for FDM printers (the ones that print from a spool of material) and slicers for resin printers (the ones that print from the disgusting goop that comes in bottles). Your printer tends to be packaged with a suggested one but usually you can use any of the appropriate type.
Slicing is one of the most important parts of 3D printing, and it tends to be the difference between ending up with a pristine figure or a very blurry one. In the most extreme cases, good slicing will be the difference between a successful and unsuccessful print.
- Comment on Cable company logic: "Our predatory anti-consumer practices are really pro-consumer" 9 months ago:
broadband? Isn't this specifically about cable TV, not Internet communication?
- Comment on Cable company logic: "Our predatory anti-consumer practices are really pro-consumer" 9 months ago:
a threat that doesn't pass even the slightest sniff test, any significant raise in prices would leave them open for a competitor to undercut them.
- Comment on Hogwarts Legacy has officially cleared Zelda as 2023's best-selling game worldwide 9 months ago:
If you are WB, I can't see how you compare the performance of this game vs the performance of Suicide Squad (which had similar development time) and not rethink your approach to future licensed titles
- Comment on We're listening and we hear you. We've been planning a business update event for next week, where we look forward to sharing more details with you about our vision for the future of Xbox. Stay tuned. 9 months ago:
A week?!
The house is going on fire and they wanna take their sweet time finding the most optimal faucet?
That basically confirms every rumor about this. It wouldn't take a week to prepare a statement if it wasn't the tectonic shift it is rumored to be. Damn.
- Comment on EXCLUSIVE | Microsoft plans Starfield launch for PlayStation 5 - XboxEra 9 months ago:
You know what, you might be right, a second attempt at the concept of a Steam Machine, but this time done in a way that, you know, actually makes sense, with a single super-official SKU, with a lot of abstraction from the "PC" part of it (which Steam Deck has already set the field for) could potentially work.
But they did it so, so fucking badly last time, that I won't believe it until I see it. - Comment on EXCLUSIVE | Microsoft plans Starfield launch for PlayStation 5 - XboxEra 9 months ago:
Yeah, at the very least it would result in a brutal deterioration of the value proposition of future Playstation hardware. The harsh truth is that a large majority of Playstation players would not consider moving to PC or Switch 2 as a viable alternative, and Sony knows that, and would price accordingly. We all saw what happened the last time they felt they were uncontested in the market when they unveiled the PS3 and its pricing, but this time there would not be a 360 to punish them for it.
There is not a world in which a hypothetical PS6 isn't at least 599 ( without the hardware to make up for it) if it doesn't have a direct competitor. And that would have its own domino effect on Switch and PC hardware pricing... what are you gonna do, go to the overpriced PS6? Pleaaaaase. - Comment on EXCLUSIVE | Microsoft plans Starfield launch for PlayStation 5 - XboxEra 9 months ago:
At this point it's not even just about it being too expensive for an upstart, it's about being too expensive, too hard, and not at all worth the risk/reward proposition for anyone.
Microsoft is the largest public company in the world and they failed at it! Coming from two successful previous generations of products! Getting in in the market as an unproven entity at this point would be suicidal. Not to speak of the fact that the requirements to enter as a player in the market today are 10x more than when Microsoft entered the market with the XBox. When they unveiled the XBox, a half-decent network infrastructure for gaming was revolutionary; nowadays, an almost-perfect infrastructure with a good digital store is a minimum requirement.Quite ironically, many of the players that could plausibly throw their name in the hat already have their fingers in gaming in other ways that don't exactly align with launching a domestic console. Apple is currently pushing for more ports of current AAA games to iOS and Mac; Facebook (I refuse to acknowledge their rebrand) is pushing Quest as its main platform and I imagine a traditional console would clash with that; NVIDIA provides hardware for Nintendo, sells gaming hardware for PC and a cloud gaming service, and I guess a console kinda clashes with all of that; Amazon seemed more interested in becoming a publisher than anything else when it comes to gaming; Alphabet probably still has PTSD from the whole Stadia fiasco...
Like, I don't know, I don't see a fuck you-tier company that could plausibly pull it off and at the same time would be interested in it. Tencent maybe? It's not looking good, honestly.
- Comment on EXCLUSIVE | Microsoft plans Starfield launch for PlayStation 5 - XboxEra 9 months ago:
It didn't end up being the system seller quality game they might have wished for, so why not get some more sales out of it. Nobody is gonna base their choice between Series X or PS5 on Starfield, but a lot of PS5 owners would indulge in purchasing the game out of curiosity. The maths make sense.
The problem is, you can extend this sentiment to most if not all of the XBox console exclusives that have been released for a good while now. They have unfortunately failed at producing a killer app for far too long at this point. Ever since Mattrick killed the momentum of the brand, they have never been able to recover it.
As much as I don't want a future in which PS5 is uncontested in the console space (Nintendo is too much its own thing to count as direct competition imo), it is starting to look like, from all angles, it just makes sense for Microsoft to focus on expanding Gamepass and their games as much as possible across all platforms because there's more money in that than in salvaging the XBox hardware brand.
- Comment on Silent Hill 2 Remake - Gameplay Reveal Trailer 9 months ago:
Most of the trailer looked like a PS3 game, especially in terms of animations and janky combat.
Honestly, combat and animation wise, I'd say that suggesting the idea that it is comparable to PS3 era games actually does a disservice to many of the games of that era (TLoU, Dead Space Series, the REs of that era, etc etc).
I might even go as far as saying that in some aspects it may even be outdone by the Silent Hill games of that era, Homecoming and Downpour, but that is probably reaching a tad too much.
- Comment on DEATH STRANDING 2: ON THE BEACH – State of Play Announce Trailer 9 months ago:
Believe me it wasn't any less jarring playing through it
To this day it is the game that I'm the least sure about whether I enjoyed it or not
I did play it to completion so that's gotta count for something... right...?
- Comment on DEATH STRANDING 2: ON THE BEACH – State of Play Announce Trailer 9 months ago:
I thought nothing could possibly be too over the top or too out there for my tastes but... This might be that
- Comment on Silent Hill 2 Remake - Gameplay Reveal Trailer 9 months ago:
It was an unfortunate that Konami clearly doesn't see Silent Hill 2 (or any of its beloved properties, really) with the same eyes that its audience has seen it for years.
The fact that they thought that this is an appropriate level of quality for what is considered by many to be either the best or at least one of the best horror games of all time is incredibly disappointing, but ultimately not surprising. My reaction to this this has been mostly "sigh, of course".
I've seen some people throw blame in Bloober's direction, but the responsability of choosing a developer that was not way over their head eith the project lays on Konami, as does the responsability of providing enough time and resources for the project.
Konami clearly wants to have their cake and eat it by intending to get the results that Capcom has gotten out of their RE revival while putting one third of the effort and the care, and at this point all I can say is that I hope it doesn't work out for them.
It really sucks when the owner of the thing is the one that cares the least about it, what else can you say really.
- Comment on Replacing the term "Metroidvania" 10 months ago:
You are walking and see a very high place, that you can't reach with your basic jump, so you decide to continue on your way.
Eventually, you get the power of flight. Your mind goes back to that high place, "oh shit, now I can get there and see what's in that place!".
Multiply that several times, with several paths, with different powers/gadgets/abilities/whatever, and that's Metroidvania.The nature of the obstacles and the tools that unlock those obstacles doesn't matter, if the world is structured around blocked paths and tools that unlock them in non-linear ways, that's Metroidvania or at least Metroidvania-adjacent.
- Comment on Inventor of NTP protocol that keeps time on billions of devices dies at age 85 10 months ago:
in certain parts of the world they really ingrained in us that roman numerals are the proper way to do it and it's very hard to shake off, apologies
- Comment on Inventor of NTP protocol that keeps time on billions of devices dies at age 85 10 months ago:
Nah, not so much a failure on your part as a failure on the part of a society that elects to glorify people that "move ball good" or "say line funny" over the people that have built the pillars without which our modern society literally would not exist in the same manner.
- Comment on Inventor of NTP protocol that keeps time on billions of devices dies at age 85 10 months ago:
To paraphrase Churchill "Never was so much owed by so many to a single man", NTP has been a critical aspect of XXIth century, from making highly complex clusterized systems work reliably to saving you the pain of adjusting the clock in your smartphone. If you have used a single electronic device for a millisecond you owe the man some thanks.
- Comment on Replacing the term "Metroidvania" 10 months ago:
...what
Reading through it, his suggestion seems rooted on the idea that Metroidvania carries implications in terms of setting, perspective or combat, which is a complete fabrication of his mind not grounded in reality. It's 2024, the people that would know and care about the Metroidvania tag know very well what that tag implies; your "revelation" that Arkham Asylum is also a Metroidvania has been commonplace in discussions for a decade.
This addresses a confusion and an issue that don't exist, and the tag is so standard at this point that changing it would not catch on and would create way more problems than it would fix.
- Comment on Cable Firms to FTC: We Shouldn’t Have to Let Users Cancel Service With a Click 10 months ago:
Subscription-based services already change the agreement of a transaction too much in favor of the provider, because it goes from "convince me that your product is good enough to go through the hassle of obtaining it" to "convince me that your product is bad enough to go through the hassle of cancelling it". It is only fair to try to tilt it in favor of the consumer as much as possible.
- Comment on Reddit seeks to launch IPO in March 10 months ago:
I find Kbin's Collections feature a good fix for federation confusion. Honestly I think it should be the default type of view when browsing communities, you need to abstract the average user from federation as much as possible and leave browsing by instance as an advance option for those that want to engage with federation in detail
- Comment on Total War: Pharaoh's High Tides update, previously a paid DLC pack, will release for free on Jan 25th 10 months ago:
They did say that the intention was to eventually expand the size of the map in Pharaoh
One plan that we’ve always had since the early stages of development on PHARAOH is to expand the size of our campaign map as a free update, and to introduce even more factions and cultures to the game.
and one has to assume that Greece would have to be one of the expanded parts... But that was the original intention before Pharaoh fell on its face so who knows if that's still on the table.
- Comment on Baldur’s Gate 3 boss says gamers don’t want mass subscriptions 10 months ago:
I mean, now that the video streaming industry has shown us how the endgame looks like for subscription models, you'd have to be crazy to want that for the videogame industry.
Whatever short-term gains you can get in convenience or price by buying into their penetration stage are not worth contributing to leading the hobby down that road even an iota.
- Comment on Meta admits using pirated books to train AI, but won't pay for it 10 months ago:
You see, if you pirate a couple textbooks in college because you don't have resources, but you want to earn your right to participate in society and not starve, it's called theft.
But if one of the top 10 companies in the world does the same with thousands of books just to get even richer, it's called fair use.
Simple, really.
- Comment on Capcom caught adding Enigma DRM to older titles, for no good reason 10 months ago:
well I think I see the problem sir
you wanna benefit from an ever increasing customer base in an evergreen ecosystem, without being willing to deal with any of the potential difficulties (many of which you are electing to present as bigger than they are) that stem from the mechanisms that have made that ecosystem reach such a huge customer base and that have made the titles on it stay evergreen in the first place.The cure is to exercise the simple logical reasoning of considering:
- That that customer base is choosing a platform with a higher friction of entry for a reason.
- That your older titles keep selling on it, even while being significantly outdated in terms of support for newer systems and options by default for a reason
- That if the problem was so severe to merit acting on it, the issue would have presented itself at some point in the decades that the ecosystem has been functioning in this matter.
I also suggest remembering that you own the source material that you can refer to at any point to prove that any potential issue is not your doing.
For prevention of this ailment in the future, I recommend staying away from meeting rooms in which decisions are made by powerpoint in the future, especially if you hear buzzwords such as "brand-risk". Risk of contagion increases in environments in which all individuals have never executed a PC game and/or in which the average age is over 50.
Oh it's no problem, you are welcome. My fee will be the PC VR mode for Resident Evil 7 that you never bothered to implement and only exists thanks to a modder. Maybe next time I'll open some support tickets to ask about that since you seem to be concerned about those so much.
Thinking about it, maybe I should also ask where your randomizer modes are since you are trying to brick them. And the removal of the piss filter for RE5 that makes that game tolerable to the eyes, surely nobody would release that without an option to remove it right? Oh dangit proper widescreen support for the older titles, that's another couple support tickets, oh and while we are at it also...
I'm gonna need a notepad. - Comment on AYANEO NEXT LITE handheld announced with SteamOS Linux 10 months ago:
Really nice news, both from the perspective of making new non-SteamDeck portable devices more appealing as well as from the perspective of standardizing Linux-based gaming setups further
- Comment on Boss moved resin printer into my office and it reeks 10 months ago:
If there was a significant amount of resin inside the printer (which I have to assume since you report strong smell), your boss is either a negligible asshole or somebody irresponsibly ignorant.
And if the printer was working and actively printing something inside an enclosed unventilated environment, then your boss can't be trusted with crayons or scissors.
- Comment on Boss moved resin printer into my office and it reeks 10 months ago:
That's fucking insane, that's like someone putting 50 lit cigarettes in your office, what the fuck
- Comment on Best games that can be completed in under ten hours? 10 months ago:
very much this, the soundtrack became my soundtrack for work for like two years
every boss theme would be the best boss theme in any other game, but here they are just one of many