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    ‮strfry("emanresu")
    Posted by Kawa
    Posted by sureanem
    hardly anyone plays offline anyway
    Hi, my name is Kawa. I vastly prefer to play by myself because Hell is other people, and I am hardly anyone.

    I don't mean offline as in by yourself, but as in actually lacking an Internet connection.

    I can think of a few reasons why you wouldn't have an Internet connection:
    1) you live in a shithole without infrastructure (note, this could also mean "way out in the sticks")
    2) you're visiting somewhere and don't have Internet there
    3) your Internet is temporarily out
    4) you don't feel any need to use computers

    Obviously, the people who don't use computers don't play video games on them and thus they don't purchase any, so we can count them right out. 2 and 3 are transient and is probably not a factor for most people (Christ, go read a book or something), and most of the people in category 1 have purchasing power equal to zero.

    So for most games, it should make perfect economic sense to use hard always-online DRM.
    Posted by tomman
    Hi, my name is Random Citizen from Soviet Venezuela, and I'm forced to play offline because my shithole was forcibly disconnected from the globalized world.

    Also, save the "your country does not count" snarky remakrs for yourself. I'm still an human that likes videogames.

    No, look, I'm not saying it's particularly nice or that they should do it, just that it'd be profitable and it's odd they're not fucking people over in this specific manner if it's profitable to do so.
    So much for the EMH, I guess.

    Alternate hypothesis: Since the desktop platform exists just to provide an illusion of control, and they're already redlining it with W10 and whatnot, too much cloud, especially in the safe space of Steam, home-built computers, and piracy, might be bad for business since it kills the platform's appeal, and considering kids today just use smartphones for their games, they're extra careful not to kill it off prematurely, since it can't really recover as it could.

    Alternate hypothesis 2: Desktop gaming just skijors off of console gaming, so whatever they do there gets done everywhere. For instance, Denuvo was explicitly designed around allowing offline play, so maybe they just want to get as "console-like" semantics without having to worry about anything else.

    Posted by CaptainJistuce
    Computers are computers, interfaces designed for 5" touchscreens will be diffrent than ones designed for 25" with a keyboard and mouse by necessity.

    What about the web-app trend then?
    CaptainJistuce
    Please state the nature of the medical emergency.
    Kawaoneechan For crying out loud, even my fictional alien species' fictional computers have at least three UI modes, and one of them is specifically for small touchscreens!

    And no bloody holograms!
    CaptainJistuce
    Posted by sureanem


    I thought you were bullish on the smartphone/webapp trend. Et tu, capitanee?
    Computers are computers, interfaces designed for 5" touchscreens will be diffrent than ones designed for 25" with a keyboard and mouse by necessity.
    tomman And in more sad news for us fans of legacy hardware: Linus himself has marked the floppy driver as "orphaned", that is "noone of us have working hardware anymore, so who cares":
    https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/47d6a7607443ea43dbc4d0f371bf773540a8f8f4

    This doesn't mean that they're deprecating the FDD driver right away, but... that's no good, yo.

    Yes, I'm aware of USB floppy drives (I even have one, a Dell-branded NEC I bought over a decade ago, when I still used floppy disks back at college). They all SUCK, and they don't provide true low-level access, so no non-standard formats fun for you - it's 1.44MB OR DEATH. And yes, I still have working drives and virgin media in storage. Last time I used a REAL, µPD765/i8272A-derived floppy interface drive was a few weeks ago (and that's only because USB boot is borked on my IBM Thinkcentre BIOS, so I always keep a Plop Boot Manager disk half-ejected in the drive, because that's a much reliable way for USB boot on that thing, rather than the "let's pretend every USB stick is an HDD so you need to tamper with the HDD boot order because we were too lazy to add a boot menu to this thing" failsauce of this Phoenix BIOS)

    So yeah, maybe it's too early for a "fuck you Linus", but preemptive action is never overkill, they say.
    Nah, who am I kidding? Even *I* have my standards, and floppy drives really DO belong to a museum.
    Fortunately I still have my 386sx for all my floppy needs~ Yes, even 5.25".
    Kawaoneechan
    Posted by tomman
    Some have Steamworks, but will work fine even if Steam is not installed (you just won't get your 'cheevos and cloud saves).
    Starbound, for example. No cheevos or Workshop mods, but the Workshop is not the only way to acquire and install mods.
    tomman Also: not all games in Steam are DRM'd.

    A bunch of my VNs and Japanese-y games there are completely unprotected. Some have Steamworks, but will work fine even if Steam is not installed (you just won't get your 'cheevos and cloud saves). A few don't even have that, they just dump the flat raw binary on Steam and only use the store as a glorified distribution channel.

    Also, there are legit ways to reclaim your game. If you're lucky to not miss the (very narrow) windows, GOG Connect may help you. And as a very specific example, EasyGameStation games distributed by Carpe Fulgur were sold both in and outside Steam. For those that bought their games outside Steam, Carpe Fulgur had to ship the updates as separate zip files, but as a nice side effect, you can use the executables from those to replace the CEG-protected executables from the Steam version, effectively killing DRM for that game, no piracy needed! (Yes, I've tested it both with Recettear and Chantelise). Too bad the rest of their catalog is Steam-only :/
    Wowfunhappy
    Posted by sureanem

    Aren't there one-size-fits-all no-Steam patches anyway?


    No.

    You can use Steamless alongside a "Steam API emulator" to get most stuff working, but no single API emulator works with every game, so you have to cycle through them to figure out which one works.

    When a game isn't compatible with an API emulator, it usually fails in an obvious way, such as not starting at all or crashing at the title screen. But I've also had games where only one mode crashes, or everything freezes after a specific level.

    So now you've run into the classic console emulator problem of, is this a bug in the game or a problem with the emulator?

    (I know too much about this because I really don't like Steam, so I have a convoluted setup where I buy games in a Virtual Machine, patch them, test them to the extent I can, and then back up the files.)
    Braintrash Once upon a time, I was interviewed for a magazine and they used the following quote as their title: "What I hate in online games are the other players." (Interview wasn't in English, so feel free to provide a better punchline, but I am pretty sure that you get the meaning.)

    So, count me in too. Online haming should be an alternative for The Samaritans, not a mandatory state asylum.
    NTI
    Posted by Kawa
    Posted by sureanem
    hardly anyone plays offline anyway
    Hi, my name is Kawa. I vastly prefer to play by myself because Hell is other people, and I am hardly anyone.

    Count me in.
    KoiMaxx
    Posted by Kawa
    Posted by sureanem
    hardly anyone plays offline anyway
    Hi, my name is Kawa. I vastly prefer to play by myself because Hell is other people, and I am hardly anyone.

    Same. I shouldn't be obligated to play online just everyone else is doing it. On a more pragmatic level, I'm not harming anyone by NOT doing it, so why should I be forced to do so?
    creaothceann
    Posted by Kawa
    Posted by sureanem
    hardly anyone plays offline anyway
    Hi, my name is Kawa. I vastly prefer to play by myself because Hell is other people, and I am hardly anyone.

    #metoo
    tomman
    Posted by Kawa
    Posted by sureanem
    hardly anyone plays offline anyway
    Hi, my name is Kawa. I vastly prefer to play by myself because Hell is other people, and I am hardly anyone.

    Hi, my name is Random Citizen from Soviet Venezuela, and I'm forced to play offline because my shithole was forcibly disconnected from the globalized world.

    Also, save the "your country does not count" snarky remakrs for yourself. I'm still an human that likes videogames.
    Kawaoneechan
    Posted by sureanem
    hardly anyone plays offline anyway
    Hi, my name is Kawa. I vastly prefer to play by myself because Hell is other people, and I am hardly anyone.
    ‮strfry("emanresu")
    Posted by CaptainJistuce
    We get it. You are an elitist prick. You don't have to keep driving it home.

    Well, that's a bit rude, but it's also an accurate characterization of my beliefs.

    I thought you weren't bullish on the smartphone/webapp trend. Et tu, capitanee?
    Posted by Wowfunhappy
    No they won't [run]. Because the vast majority of games won't start if Steam isn't running, and Steam no longer supports Windows XP.

    ... When the future's retro-PC enthusiasts try to run their Steam purchases, they'll discover that their game collection no longer works.

    ... How long before some games become unplayable?

    DRM sucks, and Steam is DRM. ...

    Aren't there one-size-fits-all no-Steam patches anyway?

    As long as you have the actual games preserved, you can sort out getting them to run properly later on. Not as if all copies of Windows XP will disappear any time soon, or as if the DRM is very strong.

    I mean, DRM isn't DRM. It's not like all of these games are shipping with Denuvo, or worse. And if they do, you can just wait a few years and then download them off of The Pirate Bay into your collection when someone eventually cracks it. Which I won't think should be possible for so long anymore with always-online DRM. But when it does, it won't be Steam who are to blame for the development.

    (It's curious why nobody did that yet - Denuvo made them mad stacks, and hardly anyone plays offline anyway, so if they merge DRM and anti-cheat in one then they'll kill two birds with one stone, and as a bonus get really nice facilities for A/B testing, analytics, and whatnot - it's also far cheaper and more effective)

    EDIT: were -> weren't
    Wowfunhappy
    Posted by tomman
    a whole bunch of old/simple games still on sale [on Steam] will still run on XP on a P4 with some RAM and a GPU with non-braindead drivers


    No they won't. Because the vast majority of games won't start if Steam isn't running, and Steam no longer supports Windows XP.

    Am I being pedantic? I actually think this is super sucky. When the future's retro-PC enthusiasts try to run their Steam purchases, they'll discover that their game collection no longer works.

    It gets a bit worse. I don't think there are any games on Steam that are only compatible with Windows XP, but presumably newer versions of Windows will also get cut someday. Is every game available on Steam compatible with the newest release of Windows? How long before some games become unplayable?

    DRM sucks, and Steam is DRM. I wish gamers who would otherwise rail against DRM schemes weren't so accepting of Steam. Sorry for the tangent.
    CaptainJistuce We get it. You are an elitist prick. You don't have to keep driving it home.
    ‮strfry("emanresu")
    Posted by funkyass
    Easy. your entire post is nothing but a logical fallacy.

    cause I can summarize your entire point very succinctly: its all been downhill since the Cotton Gin.

    That's a bit rude, to claim it's a logical fallacy to say anything at all has gone downhill, don't you think? I would think it is possible for things to have been better before, even if it's not always the case.

    The claim here is very simple, it's not just some "they don't make computers like they used to back then" tripe.
    1) If computers are easier to use, more stupid people can and do use them.
    2a) Programmers are drawn from the pool of users.
    3a) Stupid programmers make bad software.
    or
    2b) Programmers develop software in accordance with the wishes of the users, as determined by the market. (in economic terms, in accordance with the wishes of the market)
    3b) Stupid people want bad (e.g. r-selected) software and furnish for the requisite financial incentives. (e.g. pay for it, either directly or indirectly)
    funkyass
    Posted by sureanem
    How didn't it cause said negatives?


    Easy. your entire post is nothing but a logical fallacy.

    cause I can summarize your entire point very succinctly: its all been downhill since the Cotton Gin.
    ‮strfry("emanresu")
    Posted by funkyass
    I think some ancient greek philosopher said the same things about writing.

    The ancient philosophers were right about a lot of things, far more than you'd think, and I'd argue on a lot of things we're now wrong on. In this case, you're probably talking about Plato/Socrates:
    Posted by Phaedrus
    Soc. ... And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.

    I think he's got a fairly reasonable point here. Books then weren't what they are now, with the references and all.

    Anyhow, it doesn't feel all to relevant. My issue is that with user-friendliness, you attract incompetent people who should in the ideal case be kept far away from anything of importance. Not that user-friendly software is bad unto itself. If you would, for instance, ban stupid people from using semiconductors, there wouldn't be all of these problems.

    User-friendliness never caused any of the negatives you are complaining about, and the positives you are extolling never existed.

    the vast number of people who where using computers in the early 80's had enough wherewithal to be able to read the instructions to install and run their software, but rarely trawled anything outside of that. Those knew how to program where rare, adept administrators ever rarer.

    Well, this seems like common sense. Surely, if you need less skill to operate computers, then less skilled people will use them? And if UX improvements have marginal returns, so that less skilled people get more out of them, which intuitively seems true - consider old people or kids - they couldn't find the start menu on a computer, but their phones they can play around with all day without much issue, whereas technologically skilled people tend to not have much trouble with either, and accomplish about as much (not to say less) with their phones as computers, despite the former being more user-friendly - then it stands to reason UX improvements get you more incompetent people.

    How didn't it cause said negatives? Of the people who used computers in the 80's, they sure were far more knowledgeable than the people who used them in the 90's, who in turn were far more knowledgeable than those who used them in the 00's, who in turn... you get the point.

    With lowering barriers to entry, you get a lower and lower quality clientele. That is all. My main point is NOT that software that's easier to use makes people dumber, although that might be the case too at the extremes.

    I mean, this goes for everything. Like with the case where Youtube made their pages load faster, and then they noticed average page load time was going up. How come? Because then they got people from rural Siberia who could suddenly use it, and they dragged down the average. And on a similar tone, go on any famous Instagram person's page and look at the comments. You know what I mean. Those people sure aren't experts with the computers, even if that's what they'd put on Quora.

    Posted by tomman
    I'm well aware of the fact that "user friendly" can be a double edged sword.

    At one end, without user friendly systems and applications, personal computers might as well have never happened, we would not have cellphones, online banking, credit/debit cards, videogame consoles, media players, or any of the modern electronics we love. Computers would belong to a few institutions, where only a few select would be allowed to use them. This leads us to the "graybearded sysadmin" scenario some of us particularly hate.

    Let's analyze the scenario in full: if it's indeed only used by people with degrees from (good) universities, then surely the average skill level should be through the roof. So that's not entirely a downside.

    At the other end... we get the smartphone generation, where a few "disruptive entrepreneurs" took user friendliness to the extreme, dumbing down to the point of uselessness, trying to cater to that mass of population to which computers and electronics are little more than tools to achieve something, without considering consequences or side effects. The extreme who got us diseases like social networks and advertising, and yes, that's another scenario some of us really hate.

    Well, this just continues the same development, it's not a flip side of anything, just the eventual progression it has to end up at if UX improvements continue.

    Extremes are bad, but that's not excuse to condemn user friendliness on principle. I will never use cellphone crapps beyond the basics, but that doesn't mean I'll ditch web browsers and move to Lynx/Elinks (I like watching my porn pretty images and stylesheets, thanks) or become a "get off my lawn" grumpy man. What we need is fresh blood WITH RATIONAL IDEAS ("old" doesn't have to mean "museum grade", but "we can take advantage of what we have"). None of this "cellphone revolution in the Valley", but also definitely none of this "the BSD way is the only true way" elitist stuff. Too bad taking sensible decisions these days is highly frowned upon all across the board...

    Well, let's put it this way. The share of fresh blood with rational ideas is going to be about the same as the share of young people who use computers who are any good at them. So if more stupid people can use them - the end result of any UX improvements - that'll go down. If it's at 0%, software will be K-selected - "large body size, long life expectancy, and the production of fewer offspring," and if it's at 100%, software will be r-selected - "high fecundity, small body size, early maturity onset, short generation time, and the ability to disperse offspring widely".

    At which end of the spectrum are we today, where were we ten, twenty, thirty years ago, and whither are we heading? The driving cause of this development is lowering barriers to entry, and they must be raised again.
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