If we factor in failure rates, definitely the Valve Index Controllers.

I fucking love them when they work, but this is the second or third time that I had to get one replaced by Valve in the 7 months of having them. Please, Valve, Index users are already paying premium money. We’d like controllers that don’t just stop working properly despite NOT having hit them against walls repeatedly or anything of that sort. It also can’t be super lucrative for you if for every sold pair you create and ship out 5 replacements.

Very cute! Are they eating rye flour or what is that powder?

Yup, now the only reason for me to occasionally switch to the actual YouTube page is to give videos likes and subscribes (that actually count for the person and aren’t just bookmarks for myself)

I’d love to know that, too. I understand craving the security of a monthly “paycheck”, but I avoid subscriptions whenever possible because all those individual “Giving that cause/software/YouTuber 2€ per month is barely noticeable” do become noticeable at some critical mass

I love Sky and most people there genuinely are so nice. And now on Steam I can finally play it with a decent framerate (the Switch was a big step up from my phone already but that still struggled sometimes)

Oh wow, I had no idea! That’s quite interesting Thank you for the comprehensive answer and link to the blog!

Weird, I thought I only saw a single DLC thing on the store page. Must’ve missed it

Very much agree that I’d rather see a game’s development conclude with a bang instead of just slow dev burnout.

What do you mean that MT’s situation seems more complex? I haven’t been following news on that front.

Oh? I specifically checked the Steam store page just to be sure. I guess I must have not scrolled far enough hah

Incredible! It’s incredible how, for so many content updates, they kept the game fresh and interesting. Andy only a single paid expansion and it’s even only 9€!

I wish Motion Twin all success and can’t wait to see what else they come up with. If I’m not mistaken, they’re currently working on a co-op top-down slasher with cute animals getting absolutely obliterated and everything is super fast, no? I believe that one is already on my wishlist!

it’s hard to totally land that message when the game offers no alternative.

I’m of such split opinion when it comes to this argument against the game. I’ve read it so many times now and I kind of agree that there should have been some nuanced choice that changes the story in such a way where Walker tries to redeem himself? If I recall correctly, the only choice that actually made a difference for the end, was what you did in the very end scene with the mirror, right? And, of course, the choice not to play the game.

Then again, would it have been better if the player had had the option for a less shitty (not necessarily good or positive) path? Sometimes in life, especially during war, the only things that happen to you are shit and even what you do might be out of your control, because you only have one option that results in staying alive or because your mind is so focused on the task at hand that you can’t even consider other ways of tackling a problem. This might be a bit graphic, but I think Spec Ops puts you in the passenger seat with a maddened driver. You tell the driver your destination (finishing the game) and he just hits the pedal and, no matter how much you protest, he roadkills every person on the way there. The car doors are unlocked and he occasionally stops, giving you an opportunity to get out. When you finally arrive at your destination and complain that he killed all those people, he goes “If you had left the car, I would’ve stopped.” I don’t know, I feel like I have a point here, but I can’t put it into words.

Also, there are games like Animal Crossing that aren’t criticised with “Well, the message (of positivity and being rewarded for hard work and cooperation while being friendly) falls a bit flat, since the player doesn’t even have alternative options, aside from not playing the game.”

So, yeah, I’ll leave it at that now, since I think my comment is plateauing in its insightfullness.

Oh Germany, how I love your rules. A protest against the AfD in Hamburg was dismissed by the police because of the announced 10,000 people between 50,000 and 100,000 actually showed up.

Leider nicht geil :c

Thank you, I’m sure that in the next days my father and his friends will post those type of memes (“If globe is warming, how snow cold now?”) in the WhatsApp group chat

Thanks, your obvious question prompted me to take another look at that issue. My first thought was “Yes, but it’s not quite there because…actually, why?” Since I couldn’t come to a good answer anymore (because by now the AFD really seems just as bad as the NPD always was), I did some digging through the constitution-equivalent, the Grundgesetz.

1. Art. 20 specifies that Germany is a democratic and social state and clause 4 states that any German citizen has the right to resistance/opposition against anyone who seeks to abolish that order/construct, if other means do not work out (it’s not specified what kind of “resistance”, so armed resistance is also on the table, especially with the wording “if other means do not work out”)
2. Art. 21 states that political parties can be formed freely and that their inner structure must equate democratic base values. It also says that political parties which (in their stated goals or their behaviour) seek to disrupt or disable the free, democratic foundational order, or endanger the German Federal Republic, not only are illegal but also may not receive governmental funding.
3. Art. 26 states that actions which seek (and are able) to disrupt the peaceful coexistence of the countries (internationally speaking), especially the preparation of an offensive war, are illegal.

So, why is the AFD still not banned? I read through two or three news articles and it seems to boil down to a couple good arguments:

1. Currently the AFD has been given the classification of right-wing extremist, which could possibly threaten the democratic order. This allows the German intelligence agencies to insert so called Vertrauenspersonen (basically spies), whose function it is to gather as much evidence as possible and needed to support a ban of the AFD.
2. Evidence may only be gathered before, not during, a trial procedure. So unless you are absolutely confident that you have more than enough (or at the very least exactly enough) evidence, you shouldn’t initiate a ban-trial.
3. If a ban-trial fails, it could give the AFD additional support because “if the government, despite using literal spies, couldn’t find evidence to ban us, we can’t be that bad!”
4. Those ban-trials can take multiple years to go through. During that time, the AFD could gain the support of impressionable, but not yet swayed, people by claiming “Omg, we told you! They are trying to ban us for speaking the truth! Please, help us against the oppressors!” (if you’ve seen the scene in Revenge of the Sith, where Mace Windu wants to kill Palpatine then and there, because he’s too dangerous and Palpatine goes “See, Anakin? I told you, the Jedi are evil!”, its basically that scenario)

I would be so happy to be rid of the AFD, but unfortunately it seems to not be a quick process :c

Reading the entire article, it seems that they still want to tread very carefully with this whole AI ordeal. Valve isn’t just opening the floodgates, as the title would make it seem.

While yes, a healthy dose of skepticism is good to have, I think if I had to trust someone to navigate AI in gaming in the gamers’ favour, I would pick Valve. Or maybe I’m overestimating Gabe’s involvement in the happenings of the legal department’s section that is currently responsible for AI stuff.

Thanks for the clarification!

That’s sad, but at least they made the choice themselves.

I’ll check out Shadow Gambit,though! It sounds really fun!

Assuming that the premise is, they will actually magically play it even if they would usually go “Oh…nice…”, I would give Sky: Children of Light to a former classmate who was (haven’t talked to him in 6 years) the sort to throw his controller when he lost particularly bad in Call of Duty.

Sky is kinda like Journey (made by the same developer as well), but with an increased multiplayer- and social experience, to keep it short.

Oh hey that was a short but interesting read. Not sure if that fits me, but I honestly don’t care that much about the specific term/label. I am what I am and don’t want to spend a lot of time just to try and fit all kinds of niche labels onto me, if that makes sense.

It’s hard to explain more concretely than “I just like women more”. In multiplayer (and actual roleplay) games (and even emojis in WhatsApp) I tend to play women as well and won’t correct someone when they use “she/her”.

Now that I read it here from a couple other people, I would also agree that the female options are usually more interesting and grounded in all aspects (Voice acting, looks, skills).

I don’t think I’m an unhatched trans (learned that term in the comments here hah), because I really don’t mind being a guy. But I also wouldn’t mind if I had been born a woman?

Eco. It’s incredibly fun.

The premise is that the planet starts about (with default settings) thirty days away from beibg destroyed by a meteor. You and the other couple dozen or hundred people on the server have the obvious goal of stopping that meteor. But nobody actually makes you do it and since you all start with stone tools and wheelbarrows, none of you even have the means to do it in the beginning.

The idea is that you band together with other like-minded players and form a settlement and each of you specializes into a different set of professions (for example, I am a shipwright and logger mainly but also have a small pottery workshop going. In time, you find new ressources or ways to utilise already discovered ressources to eventually build cars, boats, larger settlements and stuff. While that is happening, you can (and probably want to) set some rules for what is allowed and forbidden in your settlements radius (you widen that radius by increasing culture, mostly via decorative items). The rules you set (and players actually have to vote for and come to agreements with) almost always follow a simple “If x then y (else z)” programming logic and can be incredibly creative. Once voted for, those rules are law and can’t be broken by the subset of people affected by that rule. Seriously, one town on my current server basically gutted themselves accidentally by miswording a law. They intended a specific player to be forbidden of doing anything in their town but the wording was "If is resident then prevent ". But since, yes, that player on the server was a resident of something (another town or their own homestead, doesn’t matter), so condition true, every citizen in town was banned from doing anything meaningful, since it wasn’t worded as “prevent from doing xyz”.