That said, they’re not likely to license an already made AI for their projects either, which is also nice.

Falkon is better for privacy than stock Chrome or Firefox, but I still find Brave or LibreWolf better than that.

Now that I’m getting into retro gaming as an actual hobby I want to try the originals if I can, but these will still probably be quite good.

That said, they still mess with the versions of sites I get. If I choose a US server, I want to know I’m going to get the US version of a site.

Basically my stance. Do I like all the anti-competitive crap they pull? Absolutely not. But they do still make and/or publish most of my favorite franchises. This isn’t like, say, Microsoft or Google who bake their evil directly into their products.

Seems even more odd because to my eyes Nintendo probably had a better (but not super-good) chance of winning on copyright for some of the models used on the Pals than anything patent related. Stuff like riding/transforming mount animals and vehicles are basic exploration gaming functions. If they failed to defend the patent on other prior games that used those mechanics, they don’t really stand a chance here.

Total Agree on the Jets. You mess up with that many rookie QBs, it’s likely not poor drafting that’s to blame, you definitely look at the coaching situation. Take the guy who is starting for my Vikings as an example: Sam Darnold. He failed with the Jets and Panthers, had some good signs of improvement under Shanahan with San Fran but was still backup to Purdy because Purdy is just good, and now (granted only 2-game sample size so far) may be having his comeback moment ala Mayfield last year with Minnesota under KOC, a former quarterbacks coach, who also was able to get a few solid games out of Josh Dobbs with little to no prep time and was himself planning on not throwing JJ McCarthy to the wolves right away. A coach who knows how to handle the QB position can make a world of difference to new QBs coming into the league and supposed “bust” QBs who weren’t handled well early but may still have potential.

Then they come up with the rating system whose only enforcement is on the AO rating, and don’t bother to actually clean up their shit. As the post above yours mentioned, the problem is lack of enforcement anywhere outside the AO rating or even anyone involved actually caring. Devs and marketing teams push for M if they want to actually sell a game to kids above 7 years old, retailers will sell anything to anyone lest they lose out on the money, and parents who ask about it will just ask the kid who wants to buy the game and will lie about what the rating means. We can crab about movie ratings all we want, but at least most studios and theaters actually enforce the MPAA’s rating and parents know what movie ratings mean. Game ratings are basically like TV ratings, so irrelevant you wonder why they even bother.

Sounds like the community of every competitive (or coop campaign) multiplayer game I’ve ever been in. I prefer just to not play online multiplayer, I don’t have the time (or disposable income) to “git gud” enough to be able to even stand a chance against all the obsessed people who pour hundreds of hours into it in the first month and drive everyone else out.

Even the ESRB, another example of gaming industry self-regulation, hasn’t stopped gaming companies marketing M-rated games to kids or really slowed down sales or access to such games to underage players at all. If anything, they use the M rating as a direct marketing tool to kids: “your parents wouldn’t want you to play this so you totally should”.

EDIT: autocorrect is dumb

Ah, yes, the infamous “Capcom Test”, as a YouTuber I watch calls it. There are thoughts of making a sequel in a franchise, so Capcom re-releases an old game (or in this case, collection) to gauge interest, not thinking about the fact that people may already have other versions of the game and don’t need this one, then they cancel the sequel before it even gets off the ground if the re-release of the old game doesn’t sell enough, which to Capcom is often a stupidly high number. This already killed a Darkstalkers revival, we can only hope it doesn’t do the same for MvC.

Right, it would be the place he was rescued from (if a previous owner) that abused or neglected him.

Packers just know they put themselves in the exact same situation as in the Favre and Rodgers eras: they rely on an elite starting QB to band-aid the rest of the problems on an otherwise mediocre team. Without their elite starting QB, they’re absolutely cooked, they have little else. Publications keep overrating GB every year because they’re absolutely obsessed with QB play and Favre and Rodgers were good enough for the “we only care about our QB” strategy to work. We really have yet to see if Love will be at the same level overall, but all the sports media is buying into GB’s assertion that he is. Either way, they don’t jave much of a strategy otherwise, so for GB’s sake he had better be elite.

Not to mention the triumphant cry from the cat in front. 😂

Yes, it’s invasive kernel-level anti-cheat common in competitive multiplayer games now, because cheaters will mod their system that much for the sake of getting around the anti-cheat. Annoying from all sides.

That, and despite many devs being Linux fans, there does seem to be a (false) perception that Linux is the OS of choice for cheaters.

EDIT: Just remember, can’t play a game on Linux? It’s ALWAYS either the DRM or anti-cheat. Either way, corporate BS that hinders honest paying customers more than the people it’s trying to stop.

The newest updates for LibreWolf just implemented stricter/more secure DNS settings by default. You may want to check those to see if that’s the issue.

Most people don’t, or only throw something like 5 bucks at games like that here or there. But some F2P games are pushing 10 years or more in existence, so somebody’s paying to keep the servers running. The backbone of that industry is the small population of “whales” who spend their life’s savings to get the superior rare new cosmetic or in-game currency to gamble their life away to maybe pull enough copies to max out their waifu. Then they’ll use said cosmetic or waifu for about a month before the next super-ultra rare amazing once-in-a-lifetime hat or weapon comes along, or another waifu who totally eclipses their original one is released, then it’s rinse, repeat ad infinitum until the whale is flat broke and their life is ruined. But at least they maxed out their waifu and got to the top of the rankings in the leaderboard.

KDE Neon

Yeah, at least some in-game currency is really the least they could have done if you’re gonna pay money to just get the base game to begin with since it’s F2P (pay-to-win) otherwise. Complete waste of money even for people who play and regularly spend money on these types of games.

I’ve been a part of two different friends’ attempts to quit addiction to MMOs. A high school friend had a problem with Everquest back before WoW. His brother recruited us friends to help give him alternative stuff to do like movie and other game nights. We succeeded, and he was able to put the game down. Some college friends and I were not so successful in pulling one of my roommates away from WoW. Activision Blizzard have it literally down to the science of addiction.