fox_the_apprentice

You just said ‘Linux users’ three different ways /s

get’s [sic] a lot of downvotes by people who simply don’t like that particular post.

That’s literally the point of the downvote system. To downvote posts you don’t like, or you feel are out of place.

Additionally we are seeing posts with more downvotes than a community has subscribers, meaning people are downvoting content they don’t even want to see in the first place.

This seems to be the real issue you’re trying to fight. It seems like only permitting downvotes on communities that the user has been a part of for greater than 1/2/7/30/pick-a-number days would be the proper solution. If people in a community are downvoting a post, then it means they don’t think that post is worth sharing. No admin, moderator, community owner, etc. should be able to change that.

I am strongly against removing downvotes.

From what I understand, history has proven otherwise. Wars are always very profitable for certain groups.

Epic Games*, Mihoyo**, IO Interactive, Bethesda/ZeniMax***, Deep Silver.

* Epic games is 40% owned by a publicly-traded company, Tencent.

** Mihoyo filed for an IPO in 2017, but withdrew its application for unknown reasons.

*** ZeniMax Media was recently acquired by Microsoft, and is now a Microsoft subsidiary. I’m not sure if this makes it count as a ‘non-public gaming company’ by your definition.

I was up for a Steam competitor.

GOG Galaxy has been good even before Epic Store existed.

If you want to fight the monopoly, go with a good alternative like GOG Galaxy. This article is about Epic, hence the preference for Steam.

That’s why they often make good developers.

Good developers don’t just write easy-to-write code. They write code that is easy to maintain and efficient to run - and oftentimes that requires forethought, a willingness to rewrite when a misstep is made, and above all else the willingness to tinker/learn effectively.

Source: I am a terrible developer and a very lazy person, and I have had to maintain lots of poorly-written code (some of it my own).

dwalinIsEven(-2)

Microsoft makes some very good quality adaptive controller accessories. IMO that still doesn’t make this move OK, but at least disabled people still have a supported option.

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/accessories/controllers/xbox-adaptive-controller

the lack of new first party exclusives

This is good; exclusivity hurts consumers.

Please consider using punctuation!

Did they pay you to write this? Are you forcing yourself to enjoy the game because you paid so much? Or am I insane?

No need to go for insults just because you disagree with someone. I love this game so far, it’s been a great deal of joy. For full disclosure: I paid for the $30 USD upgrade package from the gamepass version of the game to get the early access and have not paid full price yet. If script extender mods don’t work on the gamepass version of the game, I expect to purchase he game on Steam for whatever price it is at that time.

I don’t disagree with you on several points, but that doesn’t mean a it’s bad game. As I already stated, I recommend the game and I feel it’s a good game.

Here are some of my thoughts:

The ships are cool but you don’t need it. You just fast travel with a loadingscreen everywhere anyway. I saw the inside of my ship twice in 10hrs (not counting the cockpit view).

One of the things they said repeatedly during pre-release media is that the game has so many aspects to it that you can ignore entire parts of the game by design.

Don’t care about ship combat? Then don’t take ship combat missions, that’s OK.

Don’t care about outpost management? Then don’t make outposts, that’s OK.

Not having to use your ship very often is a feature, not a bad thing. I’ve taken several combat missions and transport missions. I’ve messed around with smuggling a bit. I’ve explored around in my ship and gotten several random encounters. It’s a fun part of the game, but anyone who doesn’t enjoy it isn’t forced to go through it.

Navigating the menus are a nightmare. Inventory management is difficult.

This is probably my 2nd biggest complaint about the game. The UI design is, in my opinion, just not great to use on PC. It seems everything I want quick access to is about 2 menu levels deeper in than it should be…

Laziest intro I’ve ever seen. “Hello stranger, take my ship. No reason. Ok cool. Bye.”

Yeah, but this doesn’t represent the entirety of the game. Many of the quest lines have me very interested in them.

Performance is shit. I get 40fps in towns with a “UFO rated” computer on userbenchmark. Nvidia card.

This is probably my biggest complaint about the game. That said: I agree that the graphics/performance is not great, but please do not ever use nor support UserBenchmark. They are a joke, and cannot be trusted to actually review anything.

Hardware Unboxed video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaWZKPUidUY

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/userbenchmark-benchmark-change-criticism-amd-intel,40032.html

NPC’s teleporting around, getting stuck everywhere halfway through floor, corpses flopping around, ships clipping through stations.

I expect many people will tell you “It’s a Bethesda game and it’s to be expected,” and they’ll be right. But you’re also in the right to keep calling Bethesda out on it. Giving massive companies a free pass on these things isn’t ok.

That said, none of these glitches have broken the game for me. I’ve yet to had any game experience ruined by it. Most of them I chuckle at and then move on. If anything, I think it adds charm to the game. One of my favorite things to do in Skyrim was put pots on people’s heads and watch them walk around, or to shout at them and watch their plates get stuck in a chair and vibrate around. (I’ll refrain from commenting about certain Starfield-related shenanigans for spoiler reasons.)

I can’t remember much of how Starfield was marketed but I remember the “1000 planets” thing being parroted a lot. Was the fact that these planets were going to be realistically portrayed and mostly empty wastelands something that was made clear during marketing?

They said that about 10% of planets would have life, and that one of the things they wanted to portray was an IRL astronaut’s quote of being in space as “magnificent desolation.”

https://www.pcgamer.com/about-10-of-starfields-1000-planets-have-life-on-them-as-the-game-tries-to-capture-the-magnificent-desolation-of-space-says-todd-howard/

something something Arch BTW

Did you do a full OS reset/reinstall

This, specifically from a fresh install media created directly from Microsoft’s site. Every PC manufacturer has a lot of bloatware as they attempt to separate themselves from their competitors via (sometimes hazardous) software.

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2165/

The first is that I don’t understand how this doesn’t also apply to Steam or Epic Games or any other basic storefront (except GOG of course).

There were three points in the post you’re replying to. Not all Steam games have DRM; I’m going to assume we’re talking only about games using the their DRM:

1. DRM server shutting off -> Steam has been around for a long time, longer than Denuvo. Steam makes a lot more money than Denuvo. Steam is not as publicly hated as Denuvo. Because of these things, I don’t think Steam will be shutting down any time soon; Denuvo shutting down is a much larger concern, especially due to public perception. Here’s a decent answer to the question anyways: https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/255424/what-will-happen-to-my-owned-games-if-steam-were-to-close .

TL;DR 1: It’s not as much of a concern for Steam as it is for Denuvo.

2. Game company shuts off and is unable to pay DRM subscription -> This depends on the license agreement between the DRM provider and the company. The comment you’re replying to implies that Denuvo has a subscription fee for its use in a product, and I’m going to proceed under this assumption. I doubt Steam requires any form of subscription fee to keep the DRM working - I would expect that, as they are a storefront, they pay for that via a percentage of game sales. Denuvo isn’t a storefront, so I would expect if they have a subscription fee then this would be a Denuvo concern that doesn’t apply to Steam.

TL;DR 2: Steam is a storefront, and it’s expected that their sales percentage would cover DRM costs for the game. This is a concern for Denuvo, but not really one for Steam.

3. Internet going off -> Steam has a well-known offline feature that works reasonably well. Companies that use the Stream DRM system are using libraries intended to work with this feature - that’s not to say they can’t purposefully make it unplayable offline, but it’s generally well-done. The problem is that it requires you to enable offline mode before your Internet goes out. This is something that’s regularly complained about, so I don’t think your “[…] I don’t understand how this doesn’t also apply to Steam […]” statement applies.

TL;DR 3: Steam DRM is regularly complained about in this regard.

I dislike Epic , so I’m not the person to give them a reasonable defense/discussion - you’ll have to find someone else for that.