CIWS-30

@CIWS-30@kbin.social
CIWS-30,

Thanks for the recommendations! I'll look into these, and already have dipped my feet into stuff like Everspace 2 and Outer Wilds. Some of these are on Xbox Game Pass as well, which is cool.

CIWS-30,

I think Microsoft can be thanked for that. They buckled down and lent their support to make sure Starfield didn't have constant crashes and backwards flying spaceships and whatnot.

CIWS-30,

It'll prevent indie artists from having their work plagiarized over and over without payment from indie "devs" who honestly shouldn't have the right to exist as "developers" if they can't afford to actually hire artists and such.

It'd be one thing if they made an agreement to get assets from artists for cheap or for free as a favor, but just plain putting them all out of business permanently by letting a machine steal their work forever is another thing entirely.

CIWS-30,

Wait until the population declines further and the CCP tightens its grip even more over Hong Kong. I doubt this'll last. It's just how authoritarian communist regimes work. Look at Putin and co. for examples.

CIWS-30,

Yep, really seems like Bethesda's gotten more complacent than ever. It really needs someone to kick it's ass and knock it down with a Bethesda-style game that's better than its latest releases in every way and that also causes it to bleed sales.

Kind of similar to how Fallout New Vegas wiped the floor with Fallout 3, but much much worse of a drubbing. Plus, I can't help shake the feeling that Obsidian was barred from making further Fallouts (like with the Fallout 4 engine for instance) because Bethesda was just jealous they were doing it better.

CIWS-30,

Aren't human beings also just primates too? I think this'd apply to us as well.

CIWS-30,

Not shocking. I just hope people learn from this and react by not getting into the gaming industry until the shortage of workers forces it to change. Same thing with the entertainment industry outside of gaming at large.

The way the movie / tv industry treats most of its employees who aren't at the very top is just horrible, and if people didn't have such stars in their eyes for Hollywood and such, working conditions would be so much better all around, along with pay and mandatory breaks.

I've been in the entertainment industry, and so has my sister. It's amazingly how terrible people are treated, including crew and lower end actors, and all for a product that's not really necessary or all that important for the survival of the world. People don't think about it, but we've been around for MILLIONS of years without TV and Movies. Sure there were plays and such, but it doesn't take much for humanity to amuse itself. Simple conversations, board games, some sticks and balls... if the writer / actor strikes kept going on, and new content stopped coming out, it'd suck at first, but we'd get used to it.

Japanese PC gaming saw another year of explosive growth (www.pcgamer.com)

Japanese gamers have continued to embrace the PC as a platform at staggering rates, jumping up 43% from 131.3 billion yen to 189.2 billion yen in 2022. That's a total size of about $1.3 billion US. The data comes from the latest report by Kadokawa ASCII Research Laboratories, an industry think tank which compiles yearly material...

CIWS-30,

Would be nice, I'd love to see 90 to 120 fps minimum, but at least they're not "30 fps is fine" Bethesda with Redfall, and now Starfield.

Starfield even has "You NEED FSR upscaling and it's baked into the settings presets" too on top of all that. Not even Cyberpunk 2077 had that.

CIWS-30,

Spy X Family, if you haven't seen it yet. Anyone even moderately into anime has, though. It's one of the few Anime that's (mostly) family friendly and entertaining for almost anyone of any age and gender.

CIWS-30,

To be fair, in the Anime / Manga itself, the really old man / woman that looks like a child is more played for laughs. It's the community that sexualizes the character, not the actual show / comic.

Usually. Then there's fantasy settings with halflings and dwarves and such, but they look more like adult humans with smaller bodies. Finn Deimne from Danmachi coming to mind, as he's an actual halfling hero and basically the leader of his troop. Has a full sized human woman after him, but I feel like it's not weird, as they're both adults. Just adults of different sizes / races.

CIWS-30,

That would strengthen America and make it a better, more competitive country that would have to worry a lot less about the new cold war, and also make even our military stronger in the long run... but oh no, it's "socialism" so half the voting population's too brainwashed to see how it'll help everyone, including the rich, who would have higher quality workers.

Because it's not about making life better, it's about control + sadism.

CIWS-30,

Maybe for now, but as soon as more people switch to Windows 11 or Microsoft apps that constantly show you ads and are basically spam / adware themselves, Linux will get more appealing.

Microsoft is unfortunately learning from social media companies. Not only do you PAY for the product, you are also the product, and get your personal info stolen and get served ads even while you pay.

It's getting to the point where I'm seriously eyeballing Mint again, or Kubuntu. And I'm the kind of person that's generally too lazy to even dual boot anymore.

CIWS-30,

Thanks for sharing that, even despite the uncontrollable facepalm that resulted. What's terrible is that despite the fact that this artist is so crazy and racist, his art is actually pretty good.

CIWS-30,

Only thing shocking about this is that it took this long. Any drone capable of carrying a weapon was going to get one. I mean, look at Ukraine right now. Consumer drones with soda bottle improvised explosives and cardboard drones. I can see a future where most warfare is drone vs drone, to see who can hit the other's supply lines / storage first.

The way Russia's turtling with illegal mines, drones are basically one of the only ways to attack without taking massive losses while also moving slowly and being sitting ducks for artillery.

Intel Arc Owners Left in the Cold With Starfield as Advanced Access Begins (www.techpowerup.com)

Starfield Premium owners now have access to the game in full and are testing their internet download limits with its massive 120 GB file size, but a few hopeful gamers are going to have to wait regardless of how much they paid in advance. Intel Arc GPUs currently cannot play Starfield, with varying symptoms ranging from the game...

An image for Starfield, the video game.
CIWS-30,

Hey, if it has 1 to 3 less bugs than usual, it would technically be the least buggy Bethesda game. Isn't technically correct the best kind of correct?

CIWS-30,

From the grapevine, it's less that it sucks, more like it's meh. 7/10 and all that. Exactly what you'd expect from Skyrim / Fallout 4 in space, but somehow more bland in terms of characterization and storyline.

Same Bethesda shallowness and jank. People who just like exploring a big universe and doing repetitive stuff mindlessly will enjoy it, people who want more choice and character interaction with a compelling story probably will not.

It's kind of like the old Bethesda / Bioware split, except that Bioware's basically dead now, and Larian's doing what they used to do, but possibly better in some ways. Then there's Obsidian who used to be like Bioware / Bethesda but better in the past, but nowadays they seem content to just try to copy Bethesda while adding some "quirkiness" and hoping it'll work.

CIWS-30,

Sad, because I was a fan of them and bought all their games from Saint's Row 1 all the way to Gat out of Hell (although not in chronological order) and got Agents of Mayhem for free somewhere, but think they've made some bad moves lately.

I think it all started going downhill from Agents of Mayhem, and them screwing up with the reboot of Saint's Row was probably the nail in the coffin. I wish they'd just made Saint's Row 5 instead, with wacky time travel shenanigans and a more polished set of superpowers.

At the point where they decided to "reboot" to something old school and grittier (TOO old school, imo) they really didn't get what their fanbase wanted, and what new players who'd only heard of and experienced Saint's Row 4 would get excited about.

They could've probably taken Saint's Row up to 6 entries if they'd just iterated on the formula from 4 and possibly Gat out of Hell (I wouldn't know, I got distracted and didn't play it after I bought it, ironically). Similar to how United Front Games (the developer of Sleeping Dogs) could've probably stayed in business if they'd just made Sleeping Dogs 2 instead of that horrible "free to play" multiplayer asset flip of some of the least interesting elements of Sleeping Dogs 1.

Former Twitter company 'X' wants permission to start collecting your biometric data and employment history (www.theverge.com)

The social network has updated its privacy policy. "Based on your consent, we may collect and use your biometric information for safety, security, and identification purposes,” the privacy policy reads. It doesn’t include any details on what kind of biometric information this includes — or how X plans to collect it — but...

CIWS-30,

That would explain the Saudi money, and why every hostile nation states seems to have a bot army of blue checkmarks trolling any political entity that's against Dictators or fascist, authoritarian states.

CIWS-30,

You're right, and I upvoted you, but one issue is that unless people buy AMD cards anyway, they'll never have the research funds to ever match, much less beat Nvidia in the future. All things being equal (and they usually are for my needs) I tend to buy AMD over Nvidia to keep them in the race, so that GPU's don't turn into a monopoly. As it is, the duopoly we have now (excluding Intel, which I'm not sure will continue making consumer GPU's in the long run) isn't great for consumers right now.

The only reason AMD GPU's are even as good as they are now is due to the research money they got from Ryzen taking the fight to Intel.

CIWS-30,

If it's too hard, then just stop charging them. Then they have to list NOTHING. So simple. At the very least, it'll just whittle down the fees they have to list to government mandated ones, which'll be a lot simpler.

CIWS-30,

It is mostly marketing and perception, along with having the most powerful card every generation, and features that AMD doesn't have or can't match, like Ray Tracing and DLSS.

That said, I own an AMD card (6600) and usually buy AMD and don't get why the masses don't switch. I bet a lot of people haven't even tried AMD. I used to be an AMD fanboy when I was young, but switched on a lark just to see how the other side was, and never switched back.

AMD was basically just as good (still is) but is cheaper too. I blame AMD's shitty marketing (it's generally been between okay to bad / cringe) and idiot customers who only want AMD to do better to lower Nvidia prices, but are too stupid to realize that if they bought AMD, not only would it lower Nvidia prices, it would also give AMD the funding necessary to improve their product, which meant they might not even have to "settle" for AMD anymore.

Fairphone 5 sets a new standard with 8-10 years of Android support (arstechnica.com)

The Fairphone 5 is not for sale in the US. Europeans, though, can get the device for 699 euros (~$753), with preorders starting today and a ship date of September 14. For the basic specs, we have a mid-range loadout, starting with a 6.46-inch, 90 Hz, 2770×1224 OLED display. There’s 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, a side...

CIWS-30,

Sad that the US can't get this yet, but in the meantime, Nokia's partnered up with Ifixit to make stuff like the G310 available. There's also the G22 and G42 in Europe. Apparently the G310 and the G42 have the same battery, according to iFixit's website. I'll probably get the G310 myself, if the reviews aren't terrible.

CIWS-30,

Yeah, in the 1920's to boot. If B-movie (or nowadays just any movie studio) were on here, they'd take what you just wrote, add time travel to it and make it into a movie without giving you credit. And they'd probably find some way to use AI in it too.

CIWS-30,

Not shocking, it's Chicago after all. And it was 3 guys, and if it was reporters without security, they probably had valuable equipment to steal.

CIWS-30,

If you've seen the big eyes on the thumbnails for the "Pitch Meeting" videos on Youtube, which kind of look similar to Anime Eyes: yes, they do look horrifying.

CIWS-30,

Glad they're taking a break, and hope things work out for them. Making games is tough, and making games like this which are more on the niche side can't have been easy, especially since the profits probably weren't stellar either.

CIWS-30,

We basically are. The only good news is that young conservatives believe in and want to do something about climate change, so when the current crop of oil-funded deniers die off, we have some hope to limit the damage. That said, I'm seriously considering moving up north away north as far away from the equator as possible, and to an area with fresh water and farmland.

Then buying a gun. Never thought I'd need one after I left the Army, but as things get worse, I suspect that more violence will result due to scarcity and more likely: stress related to perceived scarcity that doesn't exist. It's always the fear that's more dangerous than the reality. We can probably get by with easy to grow, nutrient-dense foods that are boring to eat, like beans. It's the stress of not being able to eat "tasty" food that'll probably get people to snap. Gunfights over steak, etc.

CIWS-30,

Honestly, I mostly don't agree with the term "Early Access", if you're charging money for it, it's released. If people are paying to play it and it's in an incomplete, buggy state, then they're not only beta testing and co-developing a title, they're PAYING to do so. They're paying to work, which is even worse than working for free.

I don't know many, if any games that are really worth doing this for (with exceptions like Larian Studios and Baldur's Gate 3 and the Divinity Original Sin series) because most games honestly shouldn't exist. There are way too many games and way too few people to play them. It's similar to Movies, TV, and Music. Most of the creative media out there should not exist and have no customer base or interest.

They're not made so people can enjoy them, they're made because of the creators' desire to make them. It leads to the atrocious workplace conditions and exploitative labor the entertainment industry at large has, and why it's so difficult to unionize or get fair wages, hours, or treatment. Even with the actually good games, there's way too many for people to actually finish in their lifetime. Now add the mediocre and bad games, and it's exponentially more impossible.

CIWS-30,

To be fair, he never said that. He just was complaining that she wasn't being a responsible mother, and that it wouldn't have happened if she hadn't done that. I would say she's being very irresponsible, but wouldn't say that she needed to be killed.

CIWS-30,

Honestly, while I don't like what these guys do. I definitely think they have some mental illness issues that should be treated, and some of them may be neurodivergent or have some physical issues with their brains or bodies that might make them unhinged that could be possibly treated with medication.

Dead serious here. People this bad generally have been abused / brainwashed when they were young, and some of them seem to have certain disabilities. Not saying they don't act like total trash, just that there's probably reasons behind it for at least some of these people. Plus, nowadays there are online cults waiting to pick them up and brainwash them when they're vulnerable. Used to be you had to go in person to a cult in the past.

In its first week, Immortals of Aveum had a peak count of just 751 players on Steam. (steamdb.info)

After 5 years in development and heavily pushing Unreal Engine 5 technologies, Immortals of Aveum was met with a whopping 751 player peak. For reference, Forspoken was considered a flop but still had over 12,000 players peak total. This may be the biggest flop of the year.

CIWS-30,

Not surprising, but disappointing. The premise was interesting (first person magic shooter) but the execution was tepid. The presentation / atmosphere, the generic graphics, the dopey dialogue, the lack of an interesting story. A lot of the success of games like Halo is how the world sucks you in with its atmosphere and storyline, I think developers really underestimate how much that matters in a single player game. Cinematogrophy is important, the feel of an experience is more than the simple gameplay of moving a character around and pushing buttons.

CIWS-30,

Honestly, given how toxic Destiny 2's monetization can be, along with its FOMO, I'm not surprised. That + the grind was why I quit. It got tiring and repetitive, especially the buy to play seasons.

CIWS-30,

Honestly, probably the only way to save the Environment and Democracy. Too much power in the hands of the few leads to perpetual effective monarchy. It's why the Founding Fathers were against large amounts of inherited wealth, particularly inherited wealth that creates dynasties in perpetuity.

I know people don't like the Founding Fathers that much lately, and I see why, but conservatives really don't understand them, and deliberately misrepresent them, because not doing so would undercut all conservative "policies".

World's a mess because of inequality and the concentration of almost all wealth and power into the hands of a small amount of sociopaths. I honestly think the only way to solve this permanently is to cap the amount of wealth and power any individual or family can have.

CIWS-30,

To be honest, hating the sequels makes it less likely that you're a prick. They weren't that good at launch, and now that the "new movie smell" has worn off, now people have the time and perspective to see that they aren't actually that good.

If they were any other sci-fi movies that didn't have the "Star Wars" name in front of them, they probably would've bombed.

CIWS-30,

All very true (unfortunately) but I bought a cheap wired ultimate for PC with programmable Turbo, and for the games that force you to constantly spam 1 button over and over, it's useful for that.

I will admit that it's not as good as official Xbox or Playstation controllers other than that, though. And the grips are straight up and down instead of angled outwards, so it's not as ergonomic either. Not as comfortable for me for long play periods.

CIWS-30,

Seems likely to me. Especially since they were probably trying to cram as much microtransaction / live service / season pass stuff in there as possible, most likely copying Diablo Immortal.

Edit: After Anthem flopped, Bioware was probably in (and still probably is) in a precarious position, especially since most of the original Bioware crew's left. They never should've sold out to EA.

CIWS-30,

Jesus has always been fairly liberal and borderline to actually socialist. He literally said rich people are more likely to go to hell because they cause problems for the poor by not helping them, and told someone rich that it's not good enough to be a nice person, but to actually follow him, that he had to donate to charity.

He also hated and actively fought with organized religion, and especially profit-driven organized religion. People say stuff like "What would Jesus do." but he made himself a whip and used it to chase people out of a synagogue and flipped tables because they were trying to profit off of religion like they were an extortionate business.

Hell, even the messianic prophets like Isaiah are very socialist. I would honestly say that parties like one of the Christian Socialist parties would better fit his stated ideologies than any conservative party. People have the wrong view about Jesus because Republicans and similar parties misrepresenting him, but he HATED people like the Republicans and Mega-churches.

Jesus was all like, "Love you enemies and be kind to those who use you." but then turned around and said stuff like, "You brood of vipers, you are sons of your father the devil, and how can you be saved from the fires of hell?!" to the leaders of the church at the time. Which shows you how much he hated and was angry at them, that he didn't even try to reconcile with them, which is why they assassinated him later.

Note than I'm not Christian (anymore) but I spent a long time as one and I learned a lot, and the biggest think I learned is that Republicans are not only not Christian, they actively misrepresent Christ and everything Christianity is about.

CIWS-30,

Yes, you are the GOAT!

CIWS-30,

You'll start to oxidize?

CIWS-30,

Like Omegaman said, it's a dumb name, but it basically refers to "different" people getting forced into more polluted environments, along with the really cold and hot areas that are more likely to suffer catastrophic disasters from climate change.

For example, Native American and Black people being forced to live in areas near dirty factories that have high rates of cancer. And if they try to move to places that are cleaner, they usually get turned down when they try to buy or rent properties for various made up reasons.

Studies have been conducted where if someone in a group like that gets even 1 White (or sometimes Asian) roommate, they suddenly get magically approved to rent that apartment in a clean area.

CIWS-30,

Well, this death'll cause chaos that's not good for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Hopefully it'll mess things up long enough for Ukraine to gain more of an advantage.

CIWS-30,

I gotta wonder myself, as I'm sure he knew they were coming for him. Even if he's not, he's basically dead, as he now has to stay in hiding for the rest of his life and can't participate in politics anymore.

CIWS-30,

Also correct if he's thinking about cute dogs / cats / other animals that have more than 1 female in the group.

CIWS-30,

The C is the grade those kids on got in "Temperature Understanding Class" because they're almost failing.

CIWS-30,

This trailer... was okay? I don't know why, but it kind of felt like a more modern version of Communist space propaganda. Very by the numbers, predictable, and a little corny. The game'll probably be alright (most likely just Fallout 4 with more sci fi + vehicles in Space with less trashy looking environments) but this trailer's not getting me very excited.

I'll probably wait a few months for the bugs and issues to get ironed out and give it a shot on Xbox Game Pass. Plus, the longer I wait, the more mods get made, and the mods are what really make Bethesda games good.

CIWS-30,

"Here now, wot's all this then?"

CIWS-30,

Honestly, Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness was a bad movie (I'm glad I didn't see it in theatres) but the worst part of it was how they betrayed the storyline of Wandavision, and the character growth and arc of Wanda herself.

CIWS-30,

Geforce Now has been good the few times I've tried it (note that I have Cable internet with a direct ethernet connection to my computer and I don't use wi-fi) but there's just barely enough latency that those who are latency sensitive can notice it.

Fine for slower paced games, but potentially an issue for faster paced ones depending on how hard they are.

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