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Cantide posted:See that sounds funny but I feel you need to make it 100% clear why something doesn't work or you just generate bad word of mouth that results in lower sales because you thought making a joke DRM was funny No, what happens is people post about this stuff on the support forums and out themselves as pirates and get mocked. You see this all the time with people going to support forums with anti-piracy stuff. It's a good way to get people to out themselves.
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Jul 11, 2023 13:34
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Thats the hilarious side of piracy. Like, if you pirated a game and it doesnt work then, oh well, either buy it or deal with it.
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Jul 11, 2023 13:46
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I can't recall exactly but I'm pretty sure I remember a story about those "ruin the game after the player is already invested" anti-piracy features and some of them did backfire. But it was something way less obvious and jokey, like a deliberate crash or something. As long as you can be 100% sure that the unkillable scorpion-man or pig irony is your copy-protection kicking in, jokes that gently caress with pirates works great. But you probably shouldn't do it unless you're very confident that the rest of your game is pretty solid, because if it has a ton of bugs the pirates are just amplifying all the people yelling "game is broken!"
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Jul 11, 2023 13:53
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yeah the reason why I bring up the Settlers anecdote is because it was tripping even on legitimate copies of the game, which was enough, in my recollection, for the Computer Gaming World writer to knock off half-a-star from their review
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Jul 11, 2023 13:55
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njsykora posted:Honestly I get more irritated with a game I bought on Steam requiring a non-Steam launcher at this point, I use Steam I don't want Ubisoft Connect or EA Play or CDPR Launcher or Rockstar Social Club or the Xbox App to be required as well. Especially when they require another login that I can get locked out of. I can't play Ubisoft games any more (not a huge loss) because I can't log into Ubisoft Connect.
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Jul 11, 2023 14:02
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It's not a gamer thought to think you shouldn't need multiple launchers running to play one game.
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Jul 11, 2023 14:05
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njsykora posted:It's not a gamer thought to think you shouldn't need multiple launchers running to play one game. So like, I'm with you that it is dumb and sucky that a game in Launcher A instead starts Launcher B when you try to run it, instead of just running the game. However, how many loving games are you playing at the same time? Like, if you are playing an Ubisoft game that uses the Ubisoft launcher, just leave the Ubisoft thing running for that week. Use the Ubisoft launcher to make a desktop icon for that game that direct-launches it instead of clicking play on Steam. Maybe even quit Steam if you can't stand the idea of multiple launchers running at the same time? (Unless you also use steam as your social app, but in that case you're running another social app, not just a game launcher.) Willingly pushing a Steam monopoly over PC gaming is incredibly self-sabotaging and stupid in the long run. Steam has not always been the Good Guy.
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Jul 11, 2023 14:29
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I think the distinction being drawn there is that if you're already buying the game over Steam, then it shouldn't require an additional layer of proprietary launcher laid overtop of Steam, to play it that's not wanting Steam to have a monopoly, that's challenging everyone else to step up and offer a compelling reason to buy from their own storefronts I own games from GOG because there are games they have that Steam doesn't I own games from the Epic Games Store because of exclusives, and also because sometimes they offered a better deal than Steam did, and I installed EGS in the first place because of the free games being given out periodically
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Jul 11, 2023 14:35
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Klyith posted:I can't recall exactly but I'm pretty sure I remember a story about those "ruin the game after the player is already invested" anti-piracy features and some of them did backfire. But it was something way less obvious and jokey, like a deliberate crash or something.
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Jul 11, 2023 14:42
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Klyith posted:Willingly pushing a Steam monopoly over PC gaming is incredibly self-sabotaging and stupid in the long run. Steam has not always been the Good Guy. case in point, there's pushback against steam games using epics online services instead of steamworks but there's a genuine reason why developers would prefer EOS, it doesn't lock them into any one storefront like steamworks does if you build your game around steamworks then that functionality will only ever work on the steam version of the game, which leads to the version sold on other stores either having crippled functionality or a fragmented multiplayer population valve could retool steamworks to decouple it from steam if they wanted to, so you could buy a game from GOG then log into it with your steam account, but they won't unless alternatives like EOS keep pushing them out repiv fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Jul 11, 2023 |
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Jul 11, 2023 14:45
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gradenko_2000 posted:I think the distinction being drawn there is that if you're already buying the game over Steam, then it shouldn't require an additional layer of proprietary launcher laid overtop of Steam, to play it The direct quote was "you shouldn't need multiple launchers running to play one game". And you don't. You can close Steam. These secondary launchers, once you've got the game purchase hooked in, don't need Steam running anymore. I did agree that they should probably just not do that when selling on Steam, or at least be less obnoxious about their alt launchers. gradenko_2000 posted:that's not wanting Steam to have a monopoly, that's challenging everyone else to step up and offer a compelling reason to buy from their own storefronts The most compelling reason would be price, and Steam has "you can't sell a game elsewhere for less than you sell it on Steam" in their store terms of service. That's extremely lovely. (And yes the only alternative that's even tried to offer better prices as a competitive advantage is Epic, but look at the amount of Angry Gamer pushback that EGS gets.)
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Jul 11, 2023 16:02
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njsykora posted:No, what happens is people post about this stuff on the support forums and out themselves as pirates and get mocked. You see this all the time with people going to support forums with anti-piracy stuff. It's a good way to get people to out themselves. OpFlash’s protection would trip if you installed patches incorrectly and it was insanely loving annoying trying to troubleshoot it because of this.
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Jul 11, 2023 21:07
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njsykora posted:No, what happens is people post about this stuff on the support forums and out themselves as pirates and get mocked. You see this all the time with people going to support forums with anti-piracy stuff. It's a good way to get people to out themselves.
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Jul 12, 2023 08:40
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I vaguely remember GTA 4 made it so you were always drunk.
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Jul 12, 2023 10:40
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LTT videos are just getting stupid with the amount of sponsor and store drops. This new “here’s some store deals for today only” segment is coming pretty close to the final straw for me.
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Jul 13, 2023 22:28
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Arivia posted:LTT videos are just getting stupid with the amount of sponsor and store drops. This new “here’s some store deals for today only” segment is coming pretty close to the final straw for me. sponsorblock is a great plugin for chrome you get to skip like 30% of ltt videos.
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Jul 13, 2023 22:47
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The only time I watch LTT is when it’s been long enough since my last watch and I think “his voice can’t be that bad, my brain is just exaggerating it”. And then I watch another video and I’m like “oh yeah this is really grating to listen to” and I repeat the cycle 6 months later.
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Jul 13, 2023 22:47
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wargames posted:sponsorblock is a great plugin for chrome you get to skip like 30% of ltt videos. I’m on ipad. I’m already subscribed to YouTube premium I shouldn’t have to put up with this poo poo
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Jul 13, 2023 22:49
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Skill issue
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Jul 13, 2023 22:58
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njsykora posted:It's not a gamer thought to think you shouldn't need multiple launchers running to play one game. A game shouldn't require any launcher to play 
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Jul 16, 2023 20:25
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mobby_6kl posted:A game shouldn't require any launcher to play I’m going to disagree with this. Everyone’s been trying to ape the Steam and Battle.net launchers in terms of buy-in, multiplayer support, etc, but frankly those two are actually really good at just letting you know what friends are doing and organizing playing together. And it’s required for those multiplayer components since it’s the wraparound service that makes everything work well - sure you can do direct connects and poo poo but with a good launcher things are actually much better.
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Jul 16, 2023 20:35
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I wouldn't mind the other launchers nearly as much if they weren't all so incredibly poo poo. Epic has a horrible UI where you can't organize games beyond hitting the favourite button plus it's a resource hog that is sluggish at best, Ubisoft Connect and EA Origin are little better. Battle.net approaches functionality, but I only have three games on it. GOG is the only one that's actually functional, except browsing their store is much better through a browser. Say what you want about Valve having a monopoly on PC Gaming, it's true, but at least their app loving works. They've got much better customer support too, I had my Origin account with around $300 of games stolen and even after sending support screenshots and copies of all the receipts and my CD-Keys they wouldn't restore the account to me.
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Jul 16, 2023 21:03
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I started using Playnite awhile ago to "manage" my PC games. Bonus is that I also hooked up my PlayStation and Xbox accounts, so I can see what games I have on those too. I've collected quite the collection of PS+ "free" games over the ~10 years or so - it's gotten to the point where if I'm thinking about getting a game on PC, I'll check to see if I scooped it up at some point as a PS+ game via Playnite first.
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Jul 16, 2023 21:32
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Klyith posted:So like, I'm with you that it is dumb and sucky that a game in Launcher A instead starts Launcher B when you try to run it, instead of just running the game.
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Jul 16, 2023 21:53
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It's gonna be fun when gaben retires and sells Valve to some VC firm
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Jul 16, 2023 22:11
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The one argument for a launcher is if you do what Fallout/Elder Scrolls do/did, ie. letting the games options be configured before launch, and then add to that that you launch straight into the game, instead of to an in-game menu. I know some indie titles have done this, but I'd like to see every game do it.
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Jul 16, 2023 22:31
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there isn't so much need for that kind of pre-launch configurator now that the graphics APIs can support things like changing resolution at runtime without making GBS threads their pants and dying
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Jul 16, 2023 22:44
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repiv posted:there isn't so much need for that kind of pre-launch configurator now that the graphics APIs can support things like changing resolution at runtime without making GBS threads their pants and dying It's more the experience of booting up a game and going directly into it that I'm after.
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Jul 16, 2023 22:47
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Occasionally you'll still need to go digging for the config file because some setting's causing a crash or the resolution makes option navigation impossible (happened to me most recently with the Division 2).
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Jul 16, 2023 22:49
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Inept posted:It's gonna be fun when gaben retires and sells Valve to some VC firm Please don’t speak this evil into the world. I can’t handle a reality where Steam adding a shorts/reels/TikTok clone is the least worst thing they do to the platform in the span of a year.
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Jul 16, 2023 23:10
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Nationalize Steam now!
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Jul 17, 2023 00:02
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Shipon posted:Steam should have a monopoly because the alternative is dozens of different storefronts doing their own resource-hog launchers Lemme tell you about this little thing called "virtual memory". You know how you get upset because you look at task manager and see Steam and 3 other launchers all taking up memory? That poo poo doesn't matter! Ignore it, keep the launchers minimized to the status tray, and all that memory will get paged out if you need it for something else. This isn't 2005, we all have SSDs now that can shove a gig of data around in a fraction of a second. Shipon posted:and not having a launcher period is also a problem in its own way.  Shipon posted:Monopolies need regulation but they should be superior to assuming that we need a billion things running just out of some sense that competition = good always Hmmm yes this is a thing that is likely to happen in the USA, a well-regulated monopoly. Video game storefronts are much like a public utility. Hellequin posted:GOG is the only one that's actually functional, except browsing their store is much better through a browser. GOG is actually functional in that after you download your games you don't even need the launcher anymore, you can just run the game.
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Jul 17, 2023 00:44
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This virtual memory thing reminds me of a debate people are having at work, where some folks are convinced if you are using the virtual desktops in windows to organize your desktops it is causing the processes for the programs to double/use more resources. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t like fundamentally it would just be really stupid to have that as a feature if that was the case. There’s a little overhead for the multi desktops sure but I don’t think it actually consumes that much more resources! I don’t care enough to get in an argument about it though, and also it’s not my area of expertise. Anyway if anyone does know if that is true or false that’d be interesting.
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Jul 17, 2023 01:23
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One problem may be that virtual desktops in windows are called “task view” and “Windows Virtual Desktop” is something completely different.
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Jul 17, 2023 01:40
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I'm fairly sure that if you hit your memory limits then Windows is going to write it out to a page file, but as long as you're using an SSD then it's not going to be as bad as it was at the turn of the century where you absolutely did not want to do that because recovering from a page file from spinning rust can take several real-world seconds.
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Jul 17, 2023 01:40
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hobbesmaster posted:One problem may be that virtual desktops in windows are called “task view” and “Windows Virtual Desktop” is something completely different. It’s the one with the little button next to the start menu that when you press it it spreads out all the open windows and then you can make new desktops and drag them in there. It’s handy for just organizing stuff if you’re working on multiple systems and want to out the relevant putty windows in an organized way etc.
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Jul 17, 2023 01:49
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priznat posted:This virtual memory thing reminds me of a debate people are having at work, where some folks are convinced if you are using the virtual desktops in windows to organize your desktops it is causing the processes for the programs to double/use more resources. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t like fundamentally it would just be really stupid to have that as a feature if that was the case. Easily false. A compositing window manager, for ex DWM in windows, is already giving every window its own buffer to draw content into. Then it takes all those buffers and puts them together so that the windows properly stack onto each other, which is the compositing bit. (That's also when it does stuff like draw a shadow around the edge of one window onto the window beneath it or whatever fancy effects.) So no matter where a window is on your screen, it takes up the exact same resources. That includes being offscreen on a different virtual desktop. It might take less when minimized, but only if the program is like "oh I'm minimized, I won't bother redrawing content until I get unminimized". But also, those thumbnails you get when you hover over an icon in the taskbar, those are dynamic real-time inserts of that window buffer. So there's also reason to keep themselves updated when minimized! So tldr adding a virtual desktop requires very close to zero resources or overhead. OTOH it does make having a lot of apps open at once easier, so in that sense may lead people to use more resources.
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Jul 17, 2023 01:58
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Cool that’s pretty much what I figured, one guy said he would see multiple processes for things in task manager but I think that is just how windows displays things and you would see it regardless if there were multiple desktops or not. Even having the same window in multiple desktops shouldn’t increase anything either since it just a display thing! I swear there must be a term for it when engineers start blindly believing weird superstitions about how computer systems work and often just saying “it’s incomprehensible and just how it is!” Like some wh40k technopriest.
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Jul 17, 2023 02:08
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priznat posted:Cool that’s pretty much what I figured, one guy said he would see multiple processes for things in task manager but I think that is just how windows displays things and you would see it regardless if there were multiple desktops or not. Even having the same window in multiple desktops shouldn’t increase anything either since it just a display thing! This is what happens when you don't do any osdev in college
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Jul 17, 2023 03:18
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More like what working with containers all day does to you.
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Jul 17, 2023 03:23
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