Elixir's recent activity

  1. Comment on Any Tildes android app? in ~tildes

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    Yeah I agree with you wholeheartedly. I'm new here but every time I've seen discussion about apps come up there always seem to be a punch of people vehemently arguing against it - and a lot of the...

    Yeah I agree with you wholeheartedly. I'm new here but every time I've seen discussion about apps come up there always seem to be a punch of people vehemently arguing against it - and a lot of the reasoning provided comes off (to me) as pretty silly. Like the whole "not everything needs to be an app" angle which makes zero sense because anybody that doesn't want to use an app can just.... not? An app existing just as an option doesn't inherently negatively impact people that don't want to use one in any way.

    If the app was eventually forced on mobile users like what Reddit does, yeah that'd be stupid. But that's not at all what anybody is asking for.

    7 votes

  2. Comment on Daedalic Entertainment ending internal development, work on new Lord of the Rings game halted in ~games

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    Yeah that's a good point. Lots of video games sound insane on paper but turn out to be really awesome when you give them a shot. Gollum is definitely one of those things you described that will...

    Yeah that's a good point. Lots of video games sound insane on paper but turn out to be really awesome when you give them a shot. Gollum is definitely one of those things you described that will need a lot more going for it to make it good - probably not the kind of thing you should commit to without having a strong, clear vision of what you're going for in the end. Which it doesn't seem like Gollum had.

    1 vote

  3. Comment on Any Tildes android app? in ~tildes

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    I agree that apps can do undesirable things like data scraping, but that's just a possibility, not a guarantee. Anybody that wants to use an app or doesn't want to use an app can make their...

    I agree that apps can do undesirable things like data scraping, but that's just a possibility, not a guarantee. Anybody that wants to use an app or doesn't want to use an app can make their choice. If you don't want to use an app the existence of an app shouldn't really have any bearing on you.

    Additionally, if you have one app - namely your browser - that basically does what all the specialized apps do, why not just use the one?

    It just comes down to preference. Some people prefer to have things like notifications or additional customization options that the mobile site doesn't currently have. Some people care about that and some people don't. Theoretically isn't it the best of both worlds if those app users can have the functionality they want without it taking away development time/effort from the main site?

    4 votes

  4. Comment on Any Tildes android app? in ~tildes

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    I don't really agree that wanting a mobile app is the same thing as being entitled. I'll be the first to admit that I'm super new here so it's entirely possible that I've missed people acting in...

    I don't really agree that wanting a mobile app is the same thing as being entitled. I'll be the first to admit that I'm super new here so it's entirely possible that I've missed people acting in the way you're describing, but so far I have never seen anybody that I'd describe as expressing a sense of entitlement. The most I've seen is people saying they would prefer to have one because it would make navigating the site on mobile easier (and could provide other features, like notifications, which would be nice).

    I agree that Tildes has a pretty nice native mobile interface (which is really refreshing coming from Reddit constantly trying to force you to download the app), but it's not as good as it could be with an app. It's not going to stop me from coming here because I really like it here (and tend to prefer browsing on PC anyway most of the time), but I really don't understand the strong pushback from people here against those that want an app. Anybody that doesn't want to use an app can just do that, the existence of apps or not has zero bearing on that choice.

    The one thing I do understand is the idea that Tildes was built with specific design philosophies and that people don't want apps that circumvent those things, such as by putting the comment box right below the post as opposed to at the bottom of the page. It's one of those things that seems weird at first until you give it a chance and think it over, and then makes sense. And having apps out there circumventing the design of Tildes might undermine that effort.

    That being said:

    1. That could become an issue with or without an app. There's nothing stopping somebody from making a RES-like browser extension that could change the layout of the page, to my knowledge.

    2. All of the app developers I have seen so far have been really cool and understanding about stuff like the comment box being at the bottom.

    3. People can already leave comments without scrolling to the bottom by simply replying another comment.

    4. Somewhat connected to 3, but at the end of the day if somebody doesn't want to read and just feels like posting garbage comments off the cuff, they will do that regardless of any safeguards you try to put in. We have to have some trust in terms of moderation, cool people being invited, and all that stuff. So really I'm not sure that will be significantly swayed one way or another by the existence of third party apps.

    11 votes

  5. Comment on Steam Deck hits over 10,000 verified and playable games in ~games

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    Absolutely agree on all counts. The handheld PC thing almost seems to me like what Valve was trying to achieve back in the day with Steam Machines, but in a much more refined way. They've put a...

    Absolutely agree on all counts. The handheld PC thing almost seems to me like what Valve was trying to achieve back in the day with Steam Machines, but in a much more refined way. They've put a lot of work into expanding the gaming market into Linux (SteamOS, Proton, etc) and were able to leverage that and make something really awesome. I didn't think the Steam Deck looked all that great early on but went ahead and put the five dollars down anyway, just in case. Then I got to (happily) eat crow when I turned out to be super wrong. It's an awesome little device that works really smoothly out of the box but also allows you to get as tinker happy with it as you want, which I love.

    I don't see there being a Steam Deck 2 for a few years, but I'll happily pick one up when that time rolls around unless something else even better has come out by then. Right now though it's pretty hard to beat. Sure, you can throw in a better screen and more power like in the ROG Ally, but then you just end up with even more limited battery life than the Deck has. It's a hard scenario to solve and I'm not really sure what the right answer is in that regard.

  6. Comment on Daedalic Entertainment ending internal development, work on new Lord of the Rings game halted in ~games

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    I agree it was probably a bit overly ambitious, but maybe they were willing to take that risk to try and push out of their niche. Kinda low how Housemarque was on the niche side (and maybe wasn't...

    I agree it was probably a bit overly ambitious, but maybe they were willing to take that risk to try and push out of their niche. Kinda low how Housemarque was on the niche side (and maybe wasn't doing super well and decided to try and do a more ambitious, different kind of project.

    For LOTR: Gollum though it's just hard for me to imagine it ever being a good game. I'm a little biased against stealth games because they're not really my thing, but I'm also willing to give almost anything a try. But come on, a game about Gollum? Gollum is so pathetic, I just don't see why anybody would want to make a game around him - or play as him, for that matter.

  7. Comment on Steam Deck hits over 10,000 verified and playable games in ~games

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    I agree re: trying it yourself. The only thing I've found with ProtonDB sometimes is that there are ways to get things to work better than what you might immediately see there. I went to install...

    I agree re: trying it yourself. The only thing I've found with ProtonDB sometimes is that there are ways to get things to work better than what you might immediately see there.

    I went to install The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the other day because people on ProtonDB were saying it runs well pretty much out of the box but that the videos were either laggy or didn't work at all. After a couple minor adjustments it worked well, but yeah, the videos weren't working. After doing a bit of digging I found this report by a user called Hobby Boy that indicated installing Quartz, Amstream, and lavfilters via Protontricks allows the videos to work, which it did.

    It's just a little unfortunate that report got bumped down by newer stuff that doesn't have all the info you need to get things working properly. And also that it seems like the game worked almost entirely properly out of the box at some point but regressed slightly over time.

    4 votes

  8. Comment on Steam Deck hits over 10,000 verified and playable games in ~games

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    By "you" I didn't mean you specifically, just anybody in general. I guess the correct thing to say would've been something more along the lines of "if one wanted that functionality". Apologies for...

    By "you" I didn't mean you specifically, just anybody in general. I guess the correct thing to say would've been something more along the lines of "if one wanted that functionality". Apologies for the confusion there.

    I was just trying to add on to what you were saying, not trying to argue or anything. Just because you were talking about how a new handheld PC would have to be substantially more powerful to give up the touchpads/steamOS. I've seen a lot of people (not you, but people like my BIL) taking the Asus ROG Ally coming with Windows on it as a positive, and I just meant to add on and say that the deck has the ability to dual boot Windows anyway for anybody that has some hangups with Linux or something.

    Anyway long story short I could have been a lot clearer so that's my bad.

    1 vote

  9. Comment on Daedalic Entertainment ending internal development, work on new Lord of the Rings game halted in ~games

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    To be fair, do we know Daedalic was "chosen" to make the game? What if they pitched it themselves? Not sure if I missed something but it's equally likely in my opinion that they wanted to expand...

    To be fair, do we know Daedalic was "chosen" to make the game? What if they pitched it themselves? Not sure if I missed something but it's equally likely in my opinion that they wanted to expand out of their niche, try something new, and go for a heavier hitting release.

  10. Comment on Steam Deck hits over 10,000 verified and playable games in ~games

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    The thing is even with the Steam Deck you can just dual boot if you really want that functionality. Personally, I haven't missed having Windows on it at all so I've been happy to just leave it...

    The thing is even with the Steam Deck you can just dual boot if you really want that functionality. Personally, I haven't missed having Windows on it at all so I've been happy to just leave it purely on Linux. A lot more games work than people might think, and the out of box experience is super smooth. It's a little bit more tedious setting up stuff from third party stores than I'd like, but for anybody who has mostly Steam games it's pretty easy to recommend in my opinion.

    2 votes

  11. Comment on Steam Deck hits over 10,000 verified and playable games in ~games

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    The Ally does look pretty cool, but my impressions from the stuff I've heard so far is that it's ultimately a way less refined experience. Having it comes with Windows is pretty nice for the...

    The Ally does look pretty cool, but my impressions from the stuff I've heard so far is that it's ultimately a way less refined experience. Having it comes with Windows is pretty nice for the theoretically increased game compatibility, but otherwise Steam OS is undoubtedly going to be much smoother to deal with out of the box. I watch Jeff Gerstmann and he was saying he has had a lot of problems with the SD card coming out of the slot on the Ally and that the out of box experience was pretty janky.

    It really comes down to what matters to you though. Some games will absolutely just not work on the deck (unless you install Windows). A lot of games will run perfectly out of the box. A lot of other games will work but will require a little bit of tinkering. Overall, there's not really been anything in my experience that I really wanted to run but couldn't, but using third party stores (ie GOG, Epic, etc) is more annoying than I'd like it to be.

    All in all, Steam Deck is a pretty easy recommend from me if you think you'd enjoy that kind of thing. They're also 20% off in the Steam sale right now (for the 512GB), so that's kinda wild.

    2 votes

  12. Comment on Gog, Steam and Epic deals and free games in ~games

    Elixir
    Link
    The Yakuza series (0-6) just got added to GOG and it's available for 70% off, which is pretty nuts. Insane amount of content there for the price. 0 is one of my favourite games of all time.

    The Yakuza series (0-6) just got added to GOG and it's available for 70% off, which is pretty nuts. Insane amount of content there for the price. 0 is one of my favourite games of all time.

    1 vote

  13. Comment on Bosses are fed up with remote work for four main reasons. Some of them are undeniable. in ~life

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    It is absolutely just propaganda in my opinion. I have never had any problem working remotely. I also have not personally seen a single shred of evidence suggesting that remote work is less...

    It is absolutely just propaganda in my opinion. I have never had any problem working remotely. I also have not personally seen a single shred of evidence suggesting that remote work is less productive in any way than working in person. If anything, my experience has been quite the opposite. I know a lot of people who have much more difficulty disconnecting from work when they do it from home than when they did it in an office. They hear a notification from their work phone or laptop or whatever and feel a sense of anxiety like they have to take a look at it immediately, even if it's like 10PM. Definitely something I've been trying to help them work on.

    I've always felt that if you can't trust members of your staff to work productively without a watchdog constantly looking over their shoulder, you shouldn't be employing them. The kind of people that will weasel out of work in a remote scenario are the exact same kind of people that will do the same thing in person. Meanwhile the rest of us get to save as much as hours a day on our commute, work in a much more comfortable environment, eat healthier meals at home, take more useful breaks that better facilitate being refreshed and doing better work, etc etc etc.

    It's so frustrating how COVID forced us into this new era of remote work really taking off only to have so many companies desperately try to claw it back.

    4 votes

  14. Comment on Steam Desktop gets a big update in ~games

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    Not trying to make you empty your wallet, but I got a Steam Deck and have absolutely loved it. It's not suitable for every game imo (Elden Ring doesn't run well enough for me to want to play it on...

    Not trying to make you empty your wallet, but I got a Steam Deck and have absolutely loved it. It's not suitable for every game imo (Elden Ring doesn't run well enough for me to want to play it on there, for instance), but it does really well at a lot of things. I've used mine quite a lot. It's really nice to be able to go play in bed or the living room or whatever, and the huge upsides over my switch are:

    • Not everything will work, but you have access to your entire Steam library without buying another copy. No Switch tax.
    • Cloud save syncing for like everything back to my PC. This is a feature on a few switch games too but for some reason is not implemented by the vast majority of developers.

    All in all I'm super impressed with it and would recommend it to anybody that has a desire to play stuff portably sometimes.

    3 votes

  15. Comment on Steam Desktop gets a big update in ~games

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    That's what I really loved about the old GOG download manager or whatever it was called. You could just download your games in an efficient manner and play them however you wanted. Galaxy was a...

    That's what I really loved about the old GOG download manager or whatever it was called. You could just download your games in an efficient manner and play them however you wanted. Galaxy was a really cool idea on paper but ended up just being an absolute mess.

    Steam on the other hand I actually find to be worth it for the most part. Some of the features are kinda whatever, but things like workshop support and the notes feature are actually really nice in my opinion. Of course, the best thing would be to provide a choice, but unfortunately I think that's probably not gonna happen.

    4 votes

  16. Comment on Steam Desktop gets a big update in ~games

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    Could you give an example of this? That sounds like it might be useful for me to implement too. Though I guess I have the notes available now as well. I've just lost track of where I am in games...

    Could you give an example of this? That sounds like it might be useful for me to implement too. Though I guess I have the notes available now as well.

    I've just lost track of where I am in games so many times! You play for a couple hours then don't get around to it again for weeks and then have no idea what's going on.

    1 vote

  17. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    I didn't think too much of the dualsense haptics/adaptive triggers stuff until I tried it myself. Astro's Playroom is an amazing showcase of the tech that really got me hyped up for its potential....

    I didn't think too much of the dualsense haptics/adaptive triggers stuff until I tried it myself. Astro's Playroom is an amazing showcase of the tech that really got me hyped up for its potential. I know Sony has little incentive to push that stuff on PC but I do wish they'd work on that stuff a bit more.

    I've always had connection problems with my Xbox controllers for some reason. I use bluetooth for everything but the xbox ones always randomly get disconnected for a few seconds and it's just unplayable.

  18. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    Have you played Dread? It's the only Metroid game I've ever played so far but was absolutely amazing. Would Prime still hold up in comparison?

    Have you played Dread? It's the only Metroid game I've ever played so far but was absolutely amazing. Would Prime still hold up in comparison?

  19. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Elixir
    Link
    As random as it is, I just recently started playing Metal Gear Solid: Integral. I picked it up because two of the commentators on a podcast I listen to are huge Metal Gear fans. They also super...

    As random as it is, I just recently started playing Metal Gear Solid: Integral. I picked it up because two of the commentators on a podcast I listen to are huge Metal Gear fans. They also super highly recommended John Wick, which I recently saw (and loved) for the first time, so I decided to give Metal Gear a go as well.

    It's predictably a little rough around the edges, but I am absolutely loving it so far. It's such an awesome stupid story that has all kinds of goofiness and crazy stuff happening all the time. The gameplay is pretty cool as well. One thing I found really interesting about Death Stranding is how deep "Kojima games" seem to go on random gameplay elements that they absolutely didn't need to, but feel really fun to have. Things like how many different weapons and items there are, the silly radio system, and all that good stuff.

    If anybody is on the fence about playing MGS1 I'd highly recommend it. If you do play the PC version though make sure you get the MGSILauncher and Widescreen Patch listed on PCGamingWiki so you can have full joystick support, widescreen, music patches, etc.

    1 vote

  20. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Elixir
    Link Parent
    My only real gripe with Diablo 4 right now is that it seems like the dualsense support is a little lacking. It does apparently work but as far as I can tell that's only the case if the controller...

    My only real gripe with Diablo 4 right now is that it seems like the dualsense support is a little lacking. It does apparently work but as far as I can tell that's only the case if the controller is physically plugged in, not if you're playing via bluetooth, which kinda sucks.

    1 vote