Fan of breaking echo chambers by being devils advocate. Other than that, centrist. As in in USA I’d be considered left.
Absolutely brutal learning curve, no power tripping until late game, requiring player to get good at the same time as character, no QoL features, in-built survival…
Skyrim is a power fantasy casual RPG. KCD is medieval immersion sim with RPG elements.
And crafting in KCD only has Alchemh and fixing stuff, whereas Skyrim has blacksmithing, alchemy and enchanting, each with skill tree.
Oh my god. Suggesting KCD to someone as next game after Skyrim has to be some kind of sadism xD But yeah, KCD is a great game, just…IMO not really anywhere genre-wise near Skyrim except for open world.
You mentioned adding non-Steam games, but that’s just a shortcut.
And it’s exactly how I mentioned it. It’s simply a way to use some of steam features - for free - even if you use different shop. Their controller support, friend list, library access. A limited amount of access but nonetheless, yet again, something they provide that they don’t have to and other shops (except GOG I believe?) don’t support.
You lose the “Join Game” buttons, the cloud saves, and the lobby invites. That is the definition of a social moat. You can leave, but you’re socially penalized for doing so.
Cloud saves should be handled by whatever alternative you choose, and both join game and lobby invites should be ideally handled by game - that’s how it began, didn’t it? Steam simply offered option for games to extend it to friends chat out of the game. And hell, today even Discord of all things has something like this.
As for competition, the fact that GOG and Itch.io have to hide in tiny niches just to survive proves my point. When the #1 player has 75%+ of the market, they don’t have to be perfect, they just have to be too big to leave.
I admit, bad wording on my part. But while Itch relies on niche, in GOG’s case I meant their initiative of saving old games. Other than that, they are really competing as a full alternative. And…I just learned GOG does not publish it’s number, huh. But they are constantly growing from what I saw published, so evidently, you can throw gauntlet at Steam and do well. And I just learned that they aren’t really that far on feature parity, with library integration being something unique, huh. No wonder people on lemmy praise it xD
My solution of mandated interoperability is exactly how we fixed the phone industry. You can switch carriers and keep your number. We should be able to switch launchers and keep our friends and games. If Steam is truly as perfect as you say, they should have nothing to fear from a system where users are actually free to leave. A benevolent gatekeeper who refuses to unlock the gate is still a gatekeeper.
I just want to underline, again, that this is the first time I am facing that point and thus, have no opinion of my own yet formed, so I am not gonna say anything as it would simply be reductive. First reaction is mixed from me - number is one thing, forcing a store front to suddenly have to change contracts with game providers, clash with legal and all that to essentially allow you to carry over hundreds of products seems iffy. On the other hand, these are just copy keys at the end of the day so the only question is how easy would it be contract-wise? Dunno. And that’s why I am witholding forming an opinion as of now.
At the end I wanna mention only that our talk made me look up some stuff about both GOG - which I now appreciate a lot more, they really are closing in feature-wise to steam - and phone operators. The second one especially was a weird thing to discover. I was a kid when the number carry-over came to be and, honestly, believed it was some weird marketing strategy…fun to know it was one of early EU thingies.
First of all, yeah, price parity sucks…but also the only thing it changes is that simply being cheaper isn’t an option. From my PoV all it does is it forces competition to compete on features. Which they all fail to do.
Also, it is not just about making a better product. It is switching costs. Because our libraries and social circles are locked into a proprietary ecosystem, we aren’t choosing Steam every day. We are just stuck there.
Friend, steam literally alows you to load games outside of steam. You absolutely can still rely on steam friends when playing even pirated games. Steam literally allows you to do it. And having more than one store installed, while not comfy, isn’t a sin - we are choosing steam due to it’s services - controller support, linux support, inbuilt forums, friend network, robust review system, robust return policy, great user support, and probably even more that I don’t know about due to being more niche.
The solution is not for a competitor to build a “more perfect Steam,” that is impossible because Valve has a 20 year head start on our data. The solution is mandated interoperability.
Again, bull. Let’s look at competition, sans “We only sell our own games” stores.
And just to be clean - I am not against your interchangable library idea, although I am not really for it either. I just really disliked how you described steam as some monstrous entity holding people by ransom.
For once? Every time xAI doesn’t manage to wrangle this little, amazingly rebelious piece of software down it goes to town on US right lol. If anything, the fact all grew to it being subdued all the time is kinda sad. xD
Heh, still have my PS2 and I still play on it. And it’s still fun :D
Yeah duuuuh. Women leave their claw marks everywhere, blood splatter, and oh my god throw that tampon to the trashcan it’s literally there for that reason!
But also yeah duuuh, men take personal offence at the idea of not pissing all around the stall, and washing hands has to include splattering water, somehow, behind the stall. Also never manages to drop the paper towel to bin.
We are all terrible lil shits <3
Every time I see grok mentioned it’s before xAI manages to castrate it further lol. Every time they miss a leash, it lashes out against the right xD
Yep, they kinda taste woody. What’s wrong with eating wood tho? Trust me, if I could actually draw nutrition from wood, I would xD
But also, nuts have hella different texture. Only nut I hate is pistachio as of now, didn’t taste them all after all.
Quite honestly, for USA space cars may come first xD
Your first sentence does clear up some space for me so…
I do feel for you and I symphatise with your point but my experience and what I saw in others screams at me that pushing and judging people only brings more suffering, because the only reaction to that is going on the defense. Even if they agree, they will protect themselves first, ask questions later…if ever.
Nostalgia can be a drive for better or a brake, depends on the person - as an example, it was what pushed me to finally better my mental state. I remembered how I was, and how I felt and I wanted to go back. And I did, at least mentally. Demons still out there but as you said in first comment in this chain, it ain’t gonna go away. But I wouldn’t be better if not for nostalgia, among other things, so yeah.
Okay. I may read the room wrong which does happen sometimes so feel free to correct me but…
To me, you sound heavily judgemental, even borderline aggressive. Some people - me from the past included - need these small moments like feeling again like a kid to build up motivation and yearning for betterment before they can even start working on themselves. It’s rarely a matter of simply willing it to happen, and for some reason people who already feel different and unhappy don’t react well to being patronised and judged.
If you want folk to move forward, offer support. To come out of shell you need to feel safer rather than pressured.
Yeah, doesn’t mean you need to drag yourself down and what’s worse, justify being down. Reserve the night and let out lil’ you back into the wild. Have fun ^^ Especially if you hit rock bottom, the only way’s up.
Games were constantly improving and fun, pizza was tastier because it was novel (and either not paid by you, or paid by your own hard worked for money (which differs from adult hard worked money due to lack of feeling of achievement)), and oh my god the sugar rush from snacks.
Wanna go back? Order some food you love but you order rarely, pop an energy drink and boot up some new, uncharted game after reserving a whole night to yourself. Yeah, you gonna feel like that kid back then.
Each decade from this kids years tho will translate to an hour of feeling like shit next day tho, no advice there xD
So first of all, congrats on proper disclaimer at the beggining - I tried to distance myself during reading thanks to that and I believe it helped me better grasp what you’re saying.
I do get your point, but honestly the only part that is speaking to me is the one about protecting the vulnerable, because what the right does in the US is, absolutely, not free speech in any way or form - they are practicing censorship and it’s painfully obvious. I am actually from Europe so the right vs left is not really that much on my mind in case of these topics - I simply abhor the idea of limiting by law what can be said or forcing what is to be said ( Gulf of America? .-. ). I do not argue for “free speech” as is proclaimed by the US right wing, but for absolute free speech - both in the terms of being free to say whatever and in being free to be judged by the public for whats left one’s mouth.
But, while I do not exactly agree with your points, I do agree that it’s worthwhile to consider defending vurnerable folk. Although in perfect scenario, communities would do so organically. :/
Ughhh I hate it…
Look, I support quite a lot of leftist agenda, but also some conservative ones, some authoritarian ones and some libertarian ones. Thus, centrist.
Is “Trans folk should be normal!” a good agenda? Fuck no, they are normal and already deal with rare and debiliating shit, no reason to offer anything else than support. But I do agree with “Leave church marriages to church rules”. One is bad, other preference of community.
Do I believe we need someone at the top to guide shit? Yeah, most of the time, but it may be I know too little about alternatives.
Do I believe we should have absolute freedom to say shit? Yes. Fuck censorship, no matter what drives it. Do I believe that saying shit should be also defended from opinions of other folk? Fuck no. If you’re walking trashbag spewing shit, don’t expect folk to treat you kindly.
So yeah. I don’t fit any camp neatly. I believe in traditions, but I don’t believe they can’t get outdated or face a new problem they weren’t designed to ha dle. I believe in vision and leadership, but I don’t believe we should lose our freedom for it - more guidance than a whip. No, slave owners were in no way or form guides for “poor silly slaves”, abuse is not guidance.
And I still know I am gonna get shat on, because this isn’t community for centrists xD But well, that’s my freedom to say things and face opinions in action.
Lemmy: MISOGYNY!
Meanwhile, me, a dumdum: Damn the author has experienced critically low self-esteem…or the joke is as fun as a rock in the field.
Like, either it’s self-depreciating/edgy humor or it’s not humor at all lol.
When the scam managed to run long enough to, be it by a chance or choice, stop being a scam xD
Aaaand doesn’t it constantly require maintenance due to this?
Friend, I love KCD with all my heart, all I am pointing out is that you are suggesting marathon to someone who ran hundred meters with that jump from Skyrim to KCD xD