I could come up with a thousand reasons as to why this would never happen. Hell, I could even argue that the whole Steam Deck’s existence comes from a series of decisions that Valve made out of hatred for Microsoft. So, yeah, it’s not happening.

Still though, as a thought experiment, imagining a world where tomorrow, Steam is owned by Microsoft, it’s… interesting, to say the least. In the most horrifying way possible, but interesting nonetheless. Quite frankly, I can’t imagine anything worse happening for video games. Like to me, this is what a video game apocalypse sounds like.

We say this every fucking year! Come on, this is getting ridiculous! Stop it! There will never be a year of the Linux desktop and if anything, this post shows why.

So much of the Linux community is utterly detached from what really matters to most users and focus on things that 80% of people won’t ever understand, care about or even use.

We focus on this and meanwhile, little quality of life features constantly get ignored when these are the real things that users will encounter and that will piss them off. They get treated as trivial. They get ignored in favor of other things.

Somebody mentioned it here. I saw it and I didn’t need them to mention it to want to say it. It’s already something that’s pissing me off. On Fedora for my Framework Laptop there is no way to adjust the scrolling speed on my trackpad which is moronically fast.

We are on the 40th release of Fedora, the 46th release of GNOME, and somehow this still isn’t baked in. I still have to go look around and use the fucking terminal to do something this basic. When some of them try Linux and will eventually push them to go back to Windows. And when users complain about this, what do we get? A bunch of elitists telling them to fuck off to go back to Windows, which I also saw as responses to this complaint about the trackpad.

Listen, Linux is an amazing project and I love it. I daily drive it. I don’t use Windows anywhere in my life. I haven’t touched OS in like two years at the very least. So many things that we are celebrating as brand new things that are finally working properly are things that already work by default on Windows and have been for years. We’re not going to convince people by mentioning that, “oh, we fixed this thing that’s been working forever on Windows.” It works on Linux now. People need more than this.

You want to know the sad truth? Here we go. We, collectively here, users of platform like Lemmy, are a vocal minority who are detached from the reality of most users. We care about ads, we care about privacy and so on, but the reality is most that people don’t. Most people won’t even notice that those things are there. For so many people, Windows is just the thing that stands between them and launching Chrome. It already works for them. There’s no reason for them to switch.

We are all way too invested in what runs on our computers and we forget that we are just us. Most people are not like us. Privacy scandals stop us from using stuff like social media and so on, but it clearly hasn’t stopped most of the world.

People heard about the shit that Meta was and is doing. Did people stop using Instagram? No, they didn’t. People know what Google is doing, how many of them switched to DuckDuckGo? A clinical moron turning the platform into a far-right haven didn’t stop most users from using Twitter.

The API bullshit didn’t stop most users from using Reddit. Sure there were protest, but I guarantee you that 99% who took part in the blackout just went back to it after. A lot of us didn’t. We left. We’re here now. But we’re still a tiny minority.

Ask a Firefox user did telling Chrome users that privacy was important ever worked? I’m sure you will get examples of it working but it’s a minority. Most people don’t give a shit and they use Chrome.

I don’t have a solution. I’m sorry, I made this long-ass comment but I don’t have much else to say. I don’t have a good solution to this problem.

Scamming a charity? :|

Well, my thinking was that I wasn’t sure, actually. I just liked their proportion better. They were nice looking. It was almost a running gag for me and my friends that I would always play women.

There were exceptions, like if it was a character that was speaking it would depend on the voice, for example in Far Cry 6. I picked the male model because I preferred his voice over her. Or if the female model is like overly sexualized with over the top sized ass, ridiculous sized boobs, a distinct lack of clothing compared to men… No thanks. I want to play as a woman, not play as a “made for horny 14 years old by horny men-children” version of women. No thanks. That kinda thing. But that’s about the only exceptions.

If I have the option in an RPG, it will be female. I’m gonna play Cyberpunk soon, you can bet your ass it will be a feminine type character. I played Mass Effect, Fem Shepard all the way. That GTA 6, for as little as I am excited by it for many reasons, I’m still very excited that one of the main characters is a woman.

I’ve always had a preference for playing women. I don’t have a problem playing any character at all. I can always immerse myself in them. It’s rarely an issue. But if I can, I like to play something that I identify myself with more, qnd that’s always been more the case with characters that are fem coded.

They are usually smaller. Usually thinner than male models. They have a more rounded face. And they tend to have long hair. All of this always fitted much more with who and what I was. I never had much muscle. I was never that tall. My voice, even as I grew into an adult, was never the typical male voice. It always had a bit of femininity in it. I have long hair. I have a more rounded face compared to most men. It always clicked more with me.

So yeah, there have always been lots of reasons, but it’s always been kind of nebulous as to why I just preferred it, you know? But then I figured out I was trans, so…

That was me. 🐣

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I think it is impossible to properly state how damaging his existence was to gaming as a whole.

I would gladly say good fucking riddance, as if it was a victory, if it weren’t for the fact that he is going away with a fuck ton of money. He didn’t lose anything, he just won. And the whole gaming industry, hell, the whlole world suffers because of it. Because this isn’t just about video gamse. The man is a vile piece of shit. And he just gets to walk away and get away with it. Because money is power. The whole thing is just sickening.

And if you’re on PC, it’s more like 2027. :D

And you wanna know why? :)

If you haven’t played Miles, then skip the original on the Steam Deck and go straight for that one. It’s shorter and denser, but also, I think it improves on everything the first game did.

Some tips.

• Always do your research about a game, always check what people are saying on the website ProtonDB before you buy it. Do not trust the rating system. We’ve had too many cases of game being labeled as verified that couldn’t even reach 30 FPS.

• Do not install Windows on it. Just don’t. You got a Steam Deck. Not a Ayaneo, not a ROG ALLY. You got a Steam Deck. The strength of this machine is entirely in its software. It’s why in my opinion there has never been any real competition to the Steam Deck as most of these rely on Windows which is awful and not made for this purpose at all.

• If you ever get a dock and plug it in your TV, do not change the resolution of the game. Let it run at 720p. The upscaler will do its job. Just turn on FSR in the Steam Deck setting for the game with the free dots button (or Xbox + B, if you are using an Xbox Controller). In my experience, you tend to get quite good results, and I’m doing it on a 4K TV.

• The case that the Deck that comes with is amazing, but it’s a bit fat. It may be an issue if you plan on taking it with you on trips or whatever. So here’s a good alternative made by the company TomToc. I have one, and I love it. It’s thinner and will fit into more backpacks while taking less space. However, know that if you’re using a case around your Steam Deck, like let’s say you got a Killswitch from Dbrand, it won’t fit. Also, if you pick this up, don’t throw the original carrying case away. Keep it, you never know.

• I never really cared for emulation in the past. However, EmuDeck is the shit. It is so good, so stupidly easy to set up. You can’t pass on it. It’s a must have. If you grew up on consoles, it’s a great way to revisit the past and also a great way to play older games which got stuck on their consoles generation, forever lost to time and eBay scalpers.

Some games.

As for good games to get you started on the Steam Deck, first:

• Aperture Desk Job is an absoute must. I am pretty sure it should be included with the Steam Deck, but I don’t remember if it was, but it’s a free, short, and unique game made by Valve specifically for this machine. It will show you everything this machine can do and familiarize yourself with every aspect of controls from the small trackpads to the gyro controls.

• If you want good examples of good optimization, I strongly recommend you get the Spider-Man game by Insomniac. I will also strongly recommend you to buy its “sequel” (it’s more of an expansion standalone game), Miles Morales, which to me, while shorter, improves on basically every aspect of the base game.

• The Steam Deck is also perfect for playing older games which you may have never got around the playing. I played BioShock on it for the first time this year entirely on the Steam Deck from beginning to end. It can feel a bit dated here and there, but I can also tell you that its reputation is well earned.

• Speaking of all the games you’d never played before, I doubt you haven’t played them. For some reason I feel like you probably did, but if you haven’t, I strongly recommend you to play the entirety of the Half-Life 2 Trilogy on this thing. It’s been optimized for it with new menus and everything.

• A Short Hike is as short as it sounds like, but it is a really memorable title. It’s relaxing, it’s hilarious and it’s simply adorable. It’s a gem.

• Terraria may not look like it at first, but it is surprisingly well optimized for the Steam Deck. It’s amazing, and if you haven’t played it, you will probably figure out eventually why this game has such a cult following. There are really good reasons as to why this is one of the highest-rated games on Steam.

• Vampire Survivor. Because of course. I feel like at this point, it’s practically illegal to own a Steam Deck and not have this game on it.

• Reventure is a fun and creative title. I honestly don’t have much to say about it. It’s really fun, really creative, really cheap. Quite funny. I loved it, and I can only recommend it. Don’t try and look up guides for this game. That would be ruining the fun.

• I haven’t finished it. But Spiritfarer It is a beautiful game, not only visually, but in its theme too. It’s a game about death and moving on from past traumas. It’s emotional, it’s funny, it’s creative, it’s just full of heart. I can promise that you will get attached to every character, but I can guarantee you that you will get attached to some, and that you will promise yourself that you won’t cry, but you fucking will! And you will love it.

• There is nothing quite like The Long Dark. You may believe you played survival games before, but this one is entirely different. I cannot recommend this enough. You really have to play it to get it. In a sea of bad and generic survival games, this one stands out as being serene to the point of being therapeutic while also being able to be ruthless and terrifying. This game isn’t particularly hard to run, but however, it doesn’t seem to like the Steam Deck very much? The frame rate is oddly unstable so I would recommend you to lock it at 30, then it won’t move at all it will be perfectly locked. It’s an issue that needs fixing.

I will conclude with this, the Steam Deck is not your PC with a 4090 in it. This is a low powered handheld machine. If I were you, I wouldn’t expect it to be reliable when it comes to newer AAA games. And that’s not only due to the power these game demands, but also to the absolutely dog shit optimization we seem to get with them nowadays.

I found that the Steam Deck is a perfect machine for me to expand my horizons. So my final recommendation would be for you to look towards indie games in general. These will be the best for the Steam Deck, but you may also find that these will be the best in general.

Have fun! :3

I am not interested in the slightest into this game. If you’re waiting for a proper GTA game, you probably won’t be getting it. This is GTA Online 2.0 and nothing else. Don’t be fooled. This is the only thing that Take-Two cares about now and this is what it will be.

You will get your single player because of course but I wouldn’t be expecting much from it. I’m expecting something that probably won’t hit as hard as previous entries did. GTA V was already large step down from GTA IV. I’m expecting a very basic single player game with very basic lukewarm social satire.

This game will be primarily focused on GTA Online, and I know you’re going to tell me that GTA 5 was like that, but I don’t think they expected to make as much money as they did from it. This one though, they know they will and therefore they will have focused everything on it to make it an even larger money maker.

If you don’t believe me, I invite you to take a look at Red Dead Redemption 2, which was an amazing game with an amazing single player, but they tried to make money from the online component and didn’t manage to do so, and therefore look at what happened to that game. The online component and therefore its community has been completely abandoned, and that game is now buried in the older generations of console, forever stuck at 30 FPS with medium to lox textures.

We will never get a next-gen update of RDR2 and we will never get another game like GTA 4. GTA 6 will be the absolute final boss of live service games. And even with a stick, I’m not touching that one.

So, I haven’t watched this yet but I just wanted to say this. I opened this video in an isolated, private tab. I’m not logged in, this is the algorithm in it’s default state. And litteraly the first video YouTube recommends me on the right of this one is a one hour and twenty-one minutes video called “Spider-Man 2 is Disgusting, Woke Propaganda”. YouTube’s default recommandation are still horrendously fucked and immediatly sends you to far right content…

I’m gonna be honest, I never really understood what it did. The difference between fullscreen and windowed mode is kind of obvious, but borderless? I get what it does, it’s like windowed mode but borderless and it can take the whole screen. But then why not just make it fullscreen? I don’t understand it.

And especially when apparently some games run better with it? Which… I don’t know, I just don’t understand it.

So this is my own post, but I’m still gonna comment on it because I have something else.

AI Bots support for multiplayer games.

It’s become quite a rarity but it used to be… I wouldn’t say standard, but common in older games and I really miss it.

Sometimes I really enjoy the gameplay loop of a multiplayer game but I just don’t want to play it in multiplayer. There is too much pressure. Counter-Strike is a good example of that. I like the gameplay loop. I like the game but I spent a ton of my time playing it offline against bots on custom maps.

It’s not exactly the same as playing with real players. I know they don’t behave the same. But speaking of not behaving the same, at least I don’t have to be worried of being insulted or anything if I make a mistake. There is much less pressure to succeed in games like this which I find fun. It’s often hard to play online because it’s all pressure and no fun for me.

Programming decent AI bots is complicated I know that which is why it’s probably as rare as it is nowadays but I still miss it there has been too many games that I loved that simply died and I can’t play anymore because there is no bot supports on it. I would love to be able to play my favorite game like for example, a Battlefield 1 game with 63 other bots that can pilot vehicles and do all of the things that real players would do.

That’s why I love Ravenfield. But yeah, how many games have died and how many gameplay loop do we miss and can never play again because it would require actual players and there was never any proper bot support implemented?

I can think of a few and actually one of them is Star Wars Battlefront 2015 which had some sort of AI bot implemented but it used a very different kind of AI. They don’t move like actual players. They have completely different animations and behaviors and what’s worse is that they have a really nasty tendency to focus on the player. Which means that on some maps and some difficulty you come out of a hallway, out on the outside part of the map, and all of a sudden every bottom of the map, every starship is firing at you. Because you’re the priority target.

Battlefront 2 2017 eventually implemented instant action and did it much better. Sadly I prefer the gameplay loop of the 2015 game by a lot. Oh well.

If you like me, buy Ravenfield on Steam. It’s not a game that happens to have bot support. It’s actually a game that is completely built around this. It’s not just a feature, it’s the point of the game, and I love it for it.

Hell yeah. I didn’t put this in my post because I didn’t want it to turn into a debate about the validity and viability of gyro controls (it is, if you don’t think so, you’re just wrong). So thanks for putting it.

Sounds quite specific but I can see it. A “turn off gore” feature could help?

Just letting people pause cutscenes to access the menus would be a huge start.

That reminds me:

If there is split screen on console…

…why the fuck do I need to mod it into the PC version?!

It’s already there, leave it in! ;_;

Apex nailed the communication aspect. It’s the gold standard as far as I am concerned.