This questions ultimately rests on the supposition of what a game intends to be or what esport should be. This is partially why it probably won't spark too much discussion, but I'm interested in your opinions nonetheless, especially when it comes to the current state of esports. It seems to me that when we are talking about rules in any kind of sport we want to change as little as we can over time. If the rules changes enough, you could argue that people have over time played what essentially is a different game. It becomes harder to compare achievements between players within the a timeline. Meta's and achievements will only really be comparable after games has stopped adding content such as new heroes or mechanics. With a lot of games there seems to be a major content patch, then long period of balancing and this cycle basically repeats itself. Another point is that by adding content and changing the meta you are preventing the current players from reaching their full potential, the older players from retaining their hard earned experience and discouraging new players by promising them a game they can never "beat". That is until the content stops coming in and in today's world that might mean that you are not able to play at all due to a lack of dedicated servers. Further the players that might once have stuck to it might already have left, leaving no opponents left to play against.

This superficial take ultimately comes from someone who hasn't really played esports except a little bit of 1.6 counter strike and counter strike global offensive. It always struck me as odd that with MOBA's and especially with shooters such as overwatch and siege, that there seem to be no pushback on this. When I ask people that prefer this sort of drip-feed-service, what I usually hear is that it's something that is necessary to keep them engaged. Isn't there ultimately a trade-off here, between a sort of accessible fun and lack of constancy which prevents players from reaching their full potential?

I immediately see the talking point of financial aspect of games. It seems to me however that Quake and counter strike largely went without major changes when compared to modern esports games. Are there any good broad rules we can use when designing esport games in order to avoid the issues mentioned here?

In an ideal world, do you agree that we generally don't want kind of content and/or rule change that we see today?

If there is a need to add content (such as heroes) to keep a game feeling "fresh". Is there an acknowledgement here that the core-gameplay isn't engaging enough? I think there is a case to be made here when it comes to MOBA's since knowledge (about enemy heroes abilities) plays a more central part when compared to more archaic shooters. Is this indicative of a an audience that is more interested in an entertaining service, rather than a (e)sport that seldom changes?

When we look at games such as world of warcraft, which isn't an esport, yet there are achievements and historic events so to speak which became cheapened or not attainable until what was basically a restart of the timeline (story of the game). Is this not what we are risking with current service models in modern esports?

due to the looming pandemic forcing everyone to stay inside, I've recently decided to get back into video games. I did a fresh install of windows 10 the other day, and tried to play a few games with my controller. I found that whenever I press the right trigger on my controller, my computer's audio cuts out system-wide immediately and does not come back on until I restart.

The controller is a wired Afterglow for Xbox 360 PL-3702.

Windows 10, version 1903.

I see two audio devices under Sound, Video and Game Controllers in Device Manager: a AMD High Definition Audio Device and a Realtek Audio device.

I've tried updating drivers for my controller and audio controllers.

I've reproduced the issue and collected logs of it following the steps here. If you know how to read these I'd be happy to send you the trace.

Now, I've tried to look at the trace of this in both Windows Performance Analyzer and Windows Media eXperience Analyzer to try and get a better sense of what's causing this. I see a pretty clear event where a bunch of stuff shows up in the visualizer, but I don't know what any of the stack traces that show up mean. This did not occur on my previous install of Windows on the same computer so I suspect it's related to something with some new Windows "gaming" feature I didn't have before.

I'm really at a loss as to where to go from here. It's both perfectly clear and completely mystifying. Any ideas?

I was recently in the market for a cheap used phone. I was looking for an Android device, preferably less than 3 years old, preferably with an unlockable bootloader and rootable, for $200 or less. I was looking at used Pixel 2's when I came across this weird Chinese manufacturer I'd never heard of.

The Umidigi F2 is a bizarre device. I was blown away by the specs, and the seller was only asking $200CAD for it, so I took a chance. I've got to say, so far I'm pretty impressed.

Quick Specs:

• 6.5" IPS LCD, 2340x1080px, bezelless, w/ hole-punch camera, no notch
• 6GB Dual-channel LPDDR4 RAM, 128GB Storage
• Mediatek P70 - ARM Cortex A73/A53 Octo-core 2.0/2.1GHz CPU
• 5 cameras, 32MP front-facing, 48MP rear, 13MP wide-angle, 5MP depth, 5MP macro
• Dual SIM, MicroSD
• 5150mAh battery
• ~40 frequency bands
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Stock Android 10

At this price I was initially skeptical. There must be something wrong with it, some glaring flaw I wasn't seeing, and/or those specs must be fake. I'm happy to say though, they're real, and the device seems much more solid than I expected.

I've had the thing a little over a week so far, and have only charged it once. On the first charge it lasted 4 days before I charged it, and still had 30% battery remaining after I'd spent a couple hours surfing the web and two hours watching youtube (total screen-on time was ~4.5hrs). After charging it I haven't been using it as much, but it's currently been running 3 days and it has 70% battery remaining. I've used it to listen to the radio for 3 hours this morning. Oh yeah, did I mention? Bizarrely, it has a FM radio tuner for some reason.

So far everything has been smooth, the device performs really well, which is not something I expected from a Mediatek CPU. Rooting it went smoothly, and I've been able to tweak a bunch of settings via the EdXposed framework, as much as you can in Android 10 anyway. I did remove some background bloat, but otherwise the default ROM is very close to vanilla AOSP.

The build quality of the thing is honestly not bad. I've used mid-range Samsung devices that have felt cheaper and more plastic-y than this. I have read some reports of bad touchscreens, but so far I haven't had any problems. There's also a DIY solution to solve that. Unfortunately, if it dies, this is pretty much my only option, since the warranty and support is pretty much nonexistent. At a quarter the price of a brand-name phone with similar specs though, I'm willing to roll those dice.

So, other than warranty, what are the downsides? Well, so far the biggest gripe I have is there is no notification LED on it. So if I go to the washroom and come back I can't just tell at a glance if I've missed a call or text, I actually need to unlock it. Luckily the fingerprint reader and face unlock are both pretty reliable. There is no wireless charging, which I'm more or less okay with. The main reason I'd want that is if the USB port died, but again, this is the sort of phone that if anything is wrong with it you're pretty much meant to throw it out. The speaker is a bit tinny, and unfortunately it's mono. The cameras are bad. The 48MP camera does take 8000x6000 pictures, but they're grainy to the point where even if you resize them down they still look worse than something taken with a good 6MP camera. This seems to be a software problem though. The camera module is apparently made by Samsung, and people have said it's gotten better with every OTA update. As for that, there's been an update this month, but a lot of people are expecting it might be the last update they put out. Umidigi apparently has a bad track record of only providing updates for a few months.

In conclusion, this is objectively a decent phone, and for it's price, it's exceptional. You sacrifice warranty, updates, any kind of support really, but you get some very decent hardware for $200.

Official site: https://www.umidigi.com/page-umidigi_f2_specification.html
Purchasable on amazon for fast shipping, purchase on aliexpress to save $50.

Comixology: https://comixology.com/unlimited
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/promoLanding?tag=ter000-20&ascsubtag=d9489bc654b311eabfd92ecf0bfff0bf0INT&promoCode=7cad7d39-c2cf-4e3d-9b17-4ebafbb03a41

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A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

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Solved!

Thanks to @pseudolobster's post here, I was able to resolve the issue by creating a new user account on the computer. I'm leaving the post up for posterity, in case anyone else is ever searching up this same issue in the future.

My husband is starting to transition to work from home. He is using his personal computer and just yesterday set up a VPN, Microsoft Teams, and Windows' built-in remote desktop so that he can access his work computer. Everything worked smoothly and he was able to finish out his workday from home just fine.

Primary Issue

This morning, upon booting his computer, he cannot access his Start Menu. It is on screen, and it appears clickable, but nothing comes up. Likewise, the search bar in his task bar is present on boot, but upon clicking the start menu for the first time it disappears and does not return. Other basic Windows functionality seems to be broken. Alt-tabbing does not work to switch between windows. System tray icons are present, but right clicking them and selecting an option does nothing. We cannot open taskbar settings or network settings this way, for example.

This might be indicative of a larger breakdown. Even by command line, I can't get to the Windows 10 settings or Windows Update. It seems like all of the "new Windows"-style interfaces won't start (though the old ones, like the Control Panel, do).

We can still open up apps by clicking on the links in his taskbar, and those seem to work fine. I can also get to the run command with Win+R.

He is running Windows 10, and as far as I know, it's fully up-to-date (I can't open Windows Update to check).

Additional Information

In attempting to diagnose this issue, I've come across several others that are potentially related. I don't know if these are relevant and they're not a primary concern at the moment, but I'm including them here in case they help contextualize what's going on.

There seems to be a runaway process that slowly eats up more and more memory over time, as well as a chunk of CPU. Sometimes it's called "Service Host: Windows Push Notifications User Service_#####" and sometimes it's called "Service Host: WpnUserService_#####" with the numbers changing each boot.

Also, in attempting to restart the computer, it sometimes (but not always) pauses with a notification about programs still running, with one of them being "Task Host Window" with the message Task Host is stopping background tasks. (\Microsoft\Windows\Plug and Play\Device Install Reboot Required) Finally, immediately before restarting, it shows an error message from "svchost.exe" which reads The system detected an overrun of a stack-based buffer in this application. This overrun could potentially allow a malicious user to gain control of this application.

Is this potentially a malware/intrusion issue?

Attempted Solutions

I have tried, to no success:

• Rebooting the computer, both via a restart in Windows as well as by holding down the power button
• Signing out and back in to his user account on the computer
• Running sfc /scannow
• Running DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

Request for Help

I know we have a lot of techy people here, but I also know you are all probably busy with everything that's going on. Nevertheless, if anyone has any guidance or help they could give on this issue, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Also, it's been a while since I've used Windows, but IIRC there's a way of just resetting the whole thing and starting fresh? That's not ideal, but if that's the course of action I need to take, just let me know. Ultimately I just want this to work, by whatever method, so that my husband can be at home and reduce his exposure.