audaxdreik
@audaxdreik@pawb.social
- Comment on Every. Single. Game. Ever. 2 weeks ago:
Being kinda serious for a second here, I think this is a byproduct of chasing ever higher production values in service of “realism”. The more they try to spackle over all the cracks, the more the ones they can’t/don’t become obvious to the player. Just like movies, videogames often require a bit of temporary suspension of disbelief.
I’m not gonna write a whole essay about chasing some perfect, mythical balance here, but it’s a design aspect that I feel a lot of developers just don’t consider at all. Maintaining a high level of illusion is extremely difficult and not even always all that worth it. Sometimes it’s just nice to admit you don’t know why that enemy dropped a glowing hamburger that restored 25% health, but those are the rules you’re playing by and you don’t have to question it.
- Comment on Anon uses Windows 2 weeks ago:
A lot of the advice out there is anecdotal - ask a dozen people, get a dozen answers.
For my part, I installed plain Arch on a custom built system. I use the Nvidia proprietary drivers for my 3080 and I’ve had no issues with drivers or gaming. If you’re talking retro, RetroArch or other assorted emulators have you covered no prob. If you’re talking modern stuff, Elden Ring works online with its Easy Anti-Cheat and I play a ton of Trackmania which chains Uplay launcher (ugh) and have even managed to install mods with Openplanet which is a Windows only mod manager. One time my friend was telling me about an old Windows 3.1 pinball game. I downloaded it from abandonware (myabandonware.com/…/3-d-ultra-pinball-creep-night…) and just launched the installer with WINE, it even placed a shortcut for it on my app launcher (kinda hated that actually 😅). I feel like that worked more flawlessly than it would have on Windows 11. Most games simply launch with Proton, however sometimes you do get weird issues that may involve trying some different versions of Proton. Dark Souls III for example still gets angry at anything beyond 8.X or whatever.
I think a lot of people look at the troubleshooting you have to do in Linux and dread it as an utter failstate of the system. Not true. In Windows when your system is hosed you’re likely down for a reinstall or patiently waiting for Microsoft to do their part and patch it. On Linux, when something goes wrong you pop the hood and take a look. You don’t HAVE to do it, you GET to do it.
Moral of the story is, your best bet is to try a dual boot if you can and give it a go yourself. I suspect the issues a lot of people are having is because they get too carried away with customizations and system configs. I try to keep most things basic unless I have a really good reason to alter them.
- Comment on Anon uses Windows 2 weeks ago:
I’m a big Linux advocate these days and my best advice is to set realistic expectations. If your intent is to recreate your Windows experience exactly, you’ll always be left disappointed. There’s simply nothing better than OneNote at what it does, but I migrated my note taking habits over to Obsidian and I’m perfectly happy there now. Turns out I didn’t need 90% of OneNote’s immense functionality.
At the end of the day though, Linux is FOSS: it’s made by people, for people, to solve the computing problems people have. There are a variety of solutions out there. Reexamine your workflows and be open to fitting new solutions to them, there are just SO MANY choices out there for how to handle most problems.
Aside from that, there’s always going to be a small learning curve. People tend to view that as simply a hassle that takes time to overcome and while that’s not entirely wrong, it very much undercuts the real value of learning how to operate and maintain the OS that you most likely use every day, all day. It’s extremely hard to accurately describe the value of investing that time and having an OS that isn’t bloated with corporate nonsense and fighting you to dictate your workflows into their intended patterns so they can agitate you with ads and paid services at every step. There’s a reason we all come out sounding like zealots and while I acknowledge it can feel a little cult-ish, who you gonna trust? Your online nerd community or a corporation who has shown time and time again that they do not value you as an individual user?
- Comment on Anon uses Windows 2 weeks ago:
It’s not entirely clear from the post, but allow me to provide some further context as I received this same pop-up myself.
I had purchased a legit Windows 10 Pro license with my own money for a custom built PC. Was always a trim installation because that’s how I roll. Still got this out of nowhere when I booted back into my Windows partition the other day, was unclear what app or process pushed it. Some update either added a new app responsible for pushing these desktop level ads or enabled a pre-existing notification feature I had previously disabled. Just a typical Win10 toast notification a few moments after logging in. Dismissed it quickly and did not care to investigate, but that’s about as bad as you can really get, IMHO. They’ve slowly been pushing the bounds, but here we are: ads straight to the desktop.
- Comment on Tesla Stock Price Reaches 'Death Cross' Status 3 weeks ago:
Second paragraph?
Tesla is just the latest to see the symbol of bearishness, which occurs when a company’s 50-day moving average crosses and drops below the 200-day average.
As an example,
- Comment on Marathon | Gameplay Reveal Trailer 3 weeks ago:
The aesthetic is impeccable, but I can’t even begin to see anything from the trailer that makes this stand out as an MP shooter? I was already not interested in the slightest because I’m just not down for any sort of GaaS these days, I want single player experiences, but WTF was that?
They threw in some kinda line about death not being the end … in 2025? Death and rebirth is not a new thing. Go play Deathloop instead, I think it’s tragically underrated and the MP can be totally ignored if you like, although its asymmetric design is also interesting if you want to engage with it.
- Comment on After shutting down several popular emulators, Nintendo admits emulation is legal 3 months ago:
With the Switch 2 announcement, it’s kind of clear that they aren’t even trying to be a tech company anymore. While not every last one of their consoles released was a true innovation, it did feel like something that was built into part of their brand. Now we just have the Switch 2 which is mostly what you’d expect with some decent QoL upgrades.
Nintendo is pursuing the walled garden approach. You’re barely even buying a console anymore, a lot of this hardware has more or less converged. What you’re buying is access to the cultivated ecosystem. Like everything else these days, they entice you in with the big, recognizable brands and hope there’s enough else to keep you there. Emulators straight pierce that veil and it’s why they went so hard on them.
I’m not criticizing (too heavily) the people that choose to hold on to the franchises they love, but once you step outside and choose alternatives, there’s very little to bring you back. Pokemon lost me a few gens ago, honestly not the biggest Zelda fan, and Mario alone won’t do it for me. Metroid and Starfox are scattershot … Personally I’ll stick with the Steam Deck and wait for Switch 2 emulation to roll around. And if it doesn’t, there are just so many other games to play these days.
- Comment on There are Minimum Wages, Why Not a Maximum Wage? 5 months ago:
I was thinking about this the other day, one of my favorite analogies is seconds.
A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds is … 31,688 years.
The analogy already breaks down, because while most people could understand 12 days and a lot of adults can understand 31 years for having lived it (some even twice or more!), 31,688 years is completely incomprehensible again. How many human generations is that? All of recorded human history is only like 5,000 years. It’s utterly, mind-numbingly insane. No trillionaires, ever! No billionaires!!!
www.cnn.com/2024/09/17/business/…/index.html
This was published on September 17th of this year, after most of the nonsense of Twitter and utter things. He’s still on track, by 2027 no less. There’s no telling how directly and flagrantly he’ll benefit from a Trump win, either.
- Comment on Elden Ring: Shadows of the Erdtree will come with a day 1 patch with various improvements 10 months ago:
This kind of infuriates me. On rare occasions loading into the game (unmodified) it’ll glitch out and forget to render the borders for a good 5 minutes or until first teleport. Like come on! I can see it! I know you’re doing it!
Another game, Code Vein (shut up, I love it, just embrace some trash from time to time) did the same thing. I could tell because the layering was messed up and your partner’s nameplate would render over the black borders by mistake …
- Comment on [deleted] 11 months ago:
Other backers include OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.WTF, no, this is worse in every way. So instead of being involved with the people and topics I choose, it’s instead left up to an algorithm? Somehow even more opaque than usual because of AI involvement.
This isn’t solving any problem, this is yet another mask to push content in front of people.
- Comment on Steamworks Development - AI Content on Steam 1 year ago:
Disappointing, but somehow inevitable.
"This will enable us to release the vast majority of games that use it. "
So it sounds like the floodgates are opening and now it’ll be up to the users to sort out the flood of BS. None of this is truly surprising, while I’m not cynical enough to suggest their temporary stance was a quick way to score some easy points with the anti-AI crowd, we all kind of have to acknowledge that this technology is coming and Steam is too big to be left behind by it. It stands to reason.
I also understand the reasoning for splitting pre/live-generated AI content, but it’s all going to go in the same dumpster for me regardless.
I certainly think it’s possible to use pre-generated AI content in an ethical and reasonable way when you’re committed to having it reach a strong enough stylistic and artistic vision with editors and artists doing sufficient passes over it. The thing is, the people already developing in that way would continue to do so because of their own standards, they won’t be affected by this decision. The people wanting to use generative AI to pump out quick cash grabs are the ones that will latch onto it, I can’t think of any other base this really appeals to.
