Xolvix

Well no-one's said much since release yet. Either people are still playing it or haven't noticed. Still in the initial tutorial section, not really feeling it yet but it is still very early on. Performance is crap on my GTX 970 which I somewhat expect being a few gens behind, but it's still annoying. Fortunately even on the low setting it still looks quite decent as "low" in this case doesn't look like the low you'd see in older FPS games. Bugs... we'll they're famous at this point, not much to say. May post more observations later. EDIT: Performance is just too unpleasant even on low, I can't make it much better short of dynamic resolution scaling which just blurs things. Unfortunately it's the ONLY game I have which defeats my graphics card, and that hasn't so far been a motivation to spend hundreds on a new card just for a single game. EDIT 2: Gonna have to stop playing it. Performance sucks too much on low, whereas an older title like Deus Ex Mankind Divided works fine on higher settings and look a lot better. Again I know the card is out of date but the performance in this game just doesn't match the visuals. That and the bugs, very disappointing, I guess the delays show just how bad the development of the game was. Maybe it'll turn out better, in a few months after some updates (and maybe an upgrade) it'll be OK.

Well I can't say much about operating system updates, but as for games I normally have this rule as well. However there's two games in recent memory that I broke it for - Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided. I played HR immediately on release and as it turns out it was quite stable (some minor bugs but they were fixed and weren't too dramatic), but Mankind Divided... oh boy. Upon release, if you had any pre-order DLC enabled it would crash the main game on startup. So I disabled the DLC via Steam just to get the base game going, but then it would reliably crash at the end of the walking intro just after the prologue (the train station section, specifically where it transition from in-game rendering to the pre-rendered video of the explosion). This was a known bug that lots of people were seeing for a while before it was fixed, but I was infuriated that it was in the release version of the game and it left a sour taste in my mouth. Got a refund pretty easily since it was under 2 hours. Waited a while, bought the game several months later and it was smooth as silk.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/k8kcbu/cyberpunk_2077_review_thread/ Initial reviews are out. General consensus is the game is buggy as fuck despite all the delays. In fact some reviewers are saying the game is buggy to the point that it impacts enjoyment. From the PC Gamer review: It's a bit confusing but I don't believe these reviews were running under the day 1 patch so maybe that'll help somewhat. I heard that Witcher 3 was also pretty buggy upon release and patches fixed most things. I got into the game late so by the time I started playing W3 I had gotten the lion's share of updates already. So who knows, Cyberpunk 2077 might follow the same route. I have seen some leaked footage of the game running under consoles and when they bug out, oh man it's obvious. Still, it looks like the game is pretty good despite the bugs. I can deal with jank; some of my favourite games have tons of jank but are still compelling enough to play.

It's worth mentioning that Cauldron of the Gods got a reasonably large update some time after initial release, which changed a few areas among other things. So if you have memories of the beginning being different, it's possible that's one of the things that was changed.

I admit, I instinctively quicksave before almost every blackjack (unless I'm blackjacking civilians for some reason). The sweet spot for a blackjack seems so precise that it feels unfair if it doesn't work. I get that NPCs with more armor will have a smaller hitbox for a blackjack and that some guards have full helmets are deliberately non-blackjack-able (but not non-gas arrow... able), but if it feels unfair to fail a blackjack rather than just lacking skill, then I'll insure myself with quicksaves. Doesn't really bother me and I'm not really willing to bash (heh) the game over it. Who knows, maybe it's actually predictable to a true veteran and it's just all about skill. As for the ModDB awards, I'll vote. I'm quite appreciative that ModDB is still around - I know the Steam Workshop and Nexus Mods are popular places but I have a long history of getting a ton of quality mods and maps for so many games from ModDB. Plus the downloads can be acquired and used independent of Steam and don't require a login to download. I get it, it's niche. But there are benefits to the "old ways" and it befits my age.

Just a thought - would it be an adequate solution to distribute DR as an AppImage? There are several programs that I use which are distributed as AppImages (LMMS, Shotcut, OpenXcom), mostly because they simplify the distribution of dependencies on distros which may not have the particular libraries required, or more specifically in this case, require a specific version of a library that's known to work reliably. I like AppImages because while they solve dependency issues, they also don't bother with sandboxing like Snap or Flatpak (so you don't have theming issues or limited access to local filesystems), plus they start much, much faster. Since AppImages are just executables with everything self-contained, you won't have the issue of custom-built libraries spilling out everywhere and possibly causing conflicts for other programs.

It's quite interesting how varied people's playstyles are. I'm currently working on upgrades for the Griffin gear set because apart from the viper gear (which is more training gear than anything), Griffin seems to have the lowest level requirements per each upgrade and hence you'll be able to use them earlier than most other Witcher gear sets. It was my first proper witcher gear set that I crafted so I'm sticking with it for now. But by sheer coincidence, it looks like Griffin is most useful for people who use signs a lot and I was doing that already, so it's an accident match. Also the only time I ever use bombs is to blow up monster nests, never in actual combat. I try to use oils when in difficult combat but I keep forgetting to do so, possibly because I have so many of them now I keep forgetting which colour oil is useful for which enemy, or even which class a monster is in to use the appropriate oil. Having to flick to the bestiary during combat to work out which oil to use breaks the flow quite a bit. That's why I just hotkey Thunderbolt.

Well, something to look forward to. I do remember the first fight with Olgierd and that sword. It was... memorable. I used to be more of a completionist back in the day, when games were smaller and I had more time. But with modern open world games, oh hell no! I mean I do take the time to do a reasonable number of ? on the map, but even the completionists I've read have regrets about all the undiscovered markers in and around Skellige. I also look at all the craftable weapons and armour I've got diagrams for and the vast majority I will never craft and end up just taking space when scrolling through the list. I recall CDPR mentioning how CP 2077 will be somewhat smaller than Witcher 3, which I'm actually happy with because it looks like there will be at least three distinct paths ("life paths") to go through, and I generally prefer games which are shorter but more replayable as opposed to going through an exceedingly large game only once or twice.

I have. I admit to letting O'Dimm take Olgierd's soul because frankly those dudes made a pact and I didn't feel like interfering with it. But now I suppose I get to choose the alternate, and what I assume is the harder option. Not that it matters, since according to the Internet I'm playing it "wrong" anyway - apparently I should be playing on Death March with enemy upscaling on, whereas I'm playing on Blood and Broken bones with upscaling off. Oh well.

Cool. That's what I'm looking forward to actually, since when I first finished Witcher 3 it was a while ago, back before Blood and Wine. It felt rather empty finishing up at Kaer Morhen with absolutely no-one else there, plus the major characters disappeared so you couldn't even chill with them afterwards. I'm of the understanding that B&W is intended to be played afterwards and it's basically another game of sorts, so that's good to look forward to. But serious this fucking game, it's almost too long! I know that sounds odd when it's mostly good stuff and not a lot of filler, but it does take a while. I'm not using to spending weeks and weeks (or possibly months) finishing a single game, certainly not as an adult.

To be fair I shouldn't really talk, my setup for hotkey items is fairly tame in comparison - food, thunderbolt, swallow and tawny owl, but only because in major fights the latter three are often needed at once and the first is just useful to hit occasionally when I remember I have that skill active that allows food to last for 20 mins. Boring but effective, although this is a replay and I'm now up to Novigrad after finishing velan. There are more powerful potions/decoctions but I only normally use them from the inventory screen. I've never gotten up to toussaint so maybe this is just higher-level stuff I've yet to encounter, but what are those three ability icons next to the full inventory one (the icons that have plus signs in them)? They can't be potions/decoctions because there's no toxicity.

Hmm, not bad. Except for the fact that you're ENCUMBERED!!! Also, what crazy person puts White Honey as one of the valuable hotkey potions?

I can tolerate under 60 FPS so long as it doesn't become unplayable (as in aiming and movement aren't seriously impeded). I'm still pushing this GTX 970 as far as it can go, and surprisingly it can still modern games fairly acceptably with some compromises. I suspect much of it is due to the fact that I'm running 1080p @ 60 Hz and newer cards seem to have a focus for targeting monitors with higher resolutions and refresh rates. There's probably other modern games that are gonna struggle on this card, but I don't play many new AAA titles anymore and things like Cyberpunk 2077 are the exception, not the rule. There is a benefit though. At some point I'll have to upgrade, it's just gonna be necessary. I don't want to do it now because decent video cards aren't cheap and again, I don't play enough modern titles on a high enough resolution/rate to justify the expense. But eventually it'll be necessary, and when that day comes, I can just replay CP 2077 on the highest settings and it'll be like a whole new experience! Most people don't seem to replay games anymore, but I still do so that's an easy way to breath fresh air into a title.

Unfortunately I've always felt paralyzed about doing anything like this in TDM because as I understand it, throwing objects to distract guards qualifies as a hit against one of the higher tier stealth penalties you see on the ending mission summary screen. I have never used noisemaker arrows for this very reason because I always felt that the reaction of guards looked like it would affect the stealth score, and I'd rather find a silent workaround. You can do that in other stealth games because they generally only care if you're spotted or not, and don't have the layered scoring system TDM has. Heh, I guess that's true somewhat. I'm 37 and I don't know if that's "old" or not but I can still see stuff reasonably clearly in TDM for the most part. I did have to tweak the lighting when it updated to 2.08 as the new post-processing lighting method changed things and the defaults just aren't quite enough to match how 2.07 looked, but it's nice and clear now (well, clear as in ambient lighting isn't pitch black anymore). Paintings annoy me. I've missed a lot of loot because I've assumed paintings weren't lootable, then I get to missions where ALL paintings are lootable, then I get some missions where SOME are lootable and some are not, but the ones that ARE lootable aren't distinguishable from ones that aren't (like having gold trim or something).

For someone who hasn't played Quake Champions, how different (or similar) is it to say Quake 3? I don't player multiplayer games much anymore for many reasons, but I am curious about anything that keeps one of my favorite game series alive. On the other hand, I was under the impression QC is more or less on life support at this point

Lots of good discussion here, much appreciated. I would consider myself reasonably a seasoned TDM player (not a mapper unfortunately, nothing more than a few test maps but who knows what the future will bring), but I think I just got bad luck having recently returned to TDM and one of the first "new" missions I chose to play was "Dragon's Claw". Figured the hard difficulty would be fine, and it was... apart from the loot requirement. Used the console command to reveal loot and it was in so many areas I passed but just didn't see. Having had the benefit of time I think I was being a bit unreasonable, since it turns out a lot of the loot was in very dark or out of the way areas (especially areas you wouldn't be able to see well without the lantern which with ghostly patrols is a bad idea). Additionally some loot was in dark houses with lots of pale wood that the loot happened to blend in with, or was half-buried in dirt. Part of the problem is that if you're dealing with enemies you can't easily dispatch to provide the ability to search for loot with lots of time and light, it's quite difficult, so you miss shit. But said shit is needed for mission objectives, so woe is me. As a side note, I did enjoy that "Little Dotted Line" video posted above, which was great timing since I was doing a replay of Witcher 3 and was thinking about that exact same issue. Problem is, I generally do not disable HUDs or even customize them when such options are provided, because I honestly don't trust the developers to properly develop the game in such a way that I won't get lost. Additionally, too many games provide information that's actually quite important (key popups, or some other HUD info) but if hidden will really mess with your enjoyment, but you won't necessarily know if this is the case when playing a new game. This is why I like TDM - there's none of that, so the mapper, if they want the player to empower the considerate player, has to create landmarks and possibly a map (detailed or incomplete) to compensate. EDIT: Well, well, the video also pointed out the issue with disabling HUD elements in modern games. Glad I'm not alone in this concern.

Well that's odd. The Internet had convinced me that CDPR is effectively keeping Poland's entire economy afloat with Witcher 3 and soon Cyberpunk 2077.

I used to be good at this game, but I took a break to play other games exclusively for a while and after coming back to it, I realise I've become crap at detecting loot. I'm good at dealing with the AI and navigating areas for the most part, but in some recent attempts at new missions I've noticed myself missing far too much loot. So of course I use the tdm_show_loot command to see what I missed, at which point I embarrass myself given how in so many cases I went to a room, looked "carefully" but didn't see anything of value, then the command reveals that there was loot in plain bloody sight! It's been a... tiring year so I wonder if perhaps my concentration just isn't high enough right now, but I also wonder if I've been ruined by newer games. The loot in TDM doesn't do any tricks to make it visible - there's no "shining" effect animation to show me it's something to pick up, there's no X-ray ability to highlight items, and yet so many games have those features that I think I've become soft. What tactics do you folks do when searching for loot? Especially in large city levels where it could be everywhere?

Man my state is stupid sometimes. The toilet paper is starting to run out again in some stores. I've already got loads of it so it ain't an issue for me but... I mean come on. It's like no-one learnt from the Melbourne/Victoria lockdown - no-one fucking starved or lacked for necessities like TP, even in one of the harshest lockdowns ever seen supply lines remained intact. But panicky people gonna panic I guess.

When put in perspective though, I'd rather deal with first world problems than third world problems. Of course I'd rather deal with no problems at all, but that ain't gonna happen until I'm dead. Or the king of the world. Working on that goal.

So ummm... you know how I posted a few days ago how COVID was basically a non-entity in my state and we had no community transmission for about 100 days? Well, we went from 0 -> 3 -> 18 cases in the span of two days. That's not much and fortunately we're enacting restrictions and can hopefully stomp on it quickly (with lessons learnt from Melbourne/Victoria), but still, unfortunate. And it's all because I opened my big mouth! Not literally mind you, but... you know what I mean.

Gigabyte H310M S2H Motherboard Intel Core i5-8400 CPU 8 GB RAM NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 Couple of TB of storage, all SSD I am in the process of procuring an upgrade to 16 GB of RAM, but only because of Cyberpunk 2077. It's been a very long time since I upgraded for any specific purpose like a game, it's normally only when enough hardware is out of date to make typical usage unacceptable... or when things die. I suppose I could upgrade the graphics as well but since I only play 1080p @ 60 Hz stuff, even "modern" titles run at acceptable performance for the most part. I also play a heck of a lot of older titles - I feel guilty when spending lots of money on a new graphics card when there's little I play to utilize it with. But that's just me.

Anyways, I enjoyed this FM, very creative and novel idea. Had performance issues like everyone else but stuck with it. I didn't get nearly as much loot as I could have but I think it was due to missing a lot of paintings.

It's what I prefer too, but I will say this though - I'm somewhat appreciative of restrictive missions that require either low or zero knockouts on the hardest difficulties, being it means you're forced to get out of your comfort zone of blackjacking everything. Such missions have certainly made me a better player, becoming more patient and more capable of ghosting. But I only like such missions when they're not overly complex in terms of layout (manors and the like); a large city/city block mission becomes a little too much. Still, having the choice is the best option. I like games which the player can choose whatever means the prefer to accomplish their objectives (like most immersive sims).