Latest 30 Comments

Quoting: Jarmer^ what's also frustrating about that, is even when you have steam itself set to use whatever version of proton as the default (so for me it's proton-cachyos-11) - if there's a native linux build, you often won't even know it's running on that instead of proton.

It's a little hidden, but in the Steam library, if you click on the (i) to "Show game details" there is a "Runs on this computer" section that indicates what runtime is used. That could be Steam Linux Runtime, Proton, etc.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: Purple Library GuyThere is a cynical side of me that says the buzz surrounding "Gizmo sales crash site, gizmo sells out in hours" is bigger than the buzz surrounding "gizmo sells this many units out of a large stockpile" even if the second number is bigger. So, what's the motivation to fix it?

It's definitely a better headline than "$vendor gets rid of unwanted inventory in a massive firesale," that's for sure.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

There is a cynical side of me that says the buzz surrounding "Gizmo sales crash site, gizmo sells out in hours" is bigger than the buzz surrounding "gizmo sells this many units out of a large stockpile" even if the second number is bigger. So, what's the motivation to fix it?

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I have now seen two or three games where the difficulty factor is about a bloodsucking landlord demanding more. I feel like that says something.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: HendrinMckaySadly, there aren't any mitigation's that folks won't find a way around. There was already a cap of two steam controllers per account that people were already getting around by buying non-limited steam accounts. Also, the level stuff does nothing, there are already sites that let you pay to level up steam account levels faster. Having had to deal with this for a company in the retail space with GPU's a few years ago, it is very hard to combat this in any meaningful way unfortunately. The scalpers will find a way, short of having some kind of lottery system which just pisses off paying customers.

there is one fix, make a shit ton of steam controllers, so they dont get sold out in the first place, but that is kinda of asking too much for an device no one knows how big the demmand is.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

i forgot to mention, some scalpers are puting ridiculous prices, i mean, if you can purchase one controler for 400 you can just wait a bit more and purchase the machine for whatever price valve puts in.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

i think this is good news and bad news at the same time.

the bad news is, valve is completely under estimating their demands, i mean, not only the controller should have a bigger demmand than the machine, but the machine should have an bundle that include the controller as well...

the good news is, those controllers are most likely sold at a profit, the more they sell, the more they can make not just controllers but the machines as well, that might be sold at a loss, not to mention purchasing then togheter with the bundle probably is cheaper than separatedly, the more expensive the controller was the easier to make the machine bundle seems like an good deal since they include it.

then, if they can relase the machine togheter with half life 3 in a bundle...

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: HendrinMckay

Quoting: melkemind

Quoting: ArehandoroBloody scalpers.

There are like 4 listings on eBay. Is there any real evidence a large number of sales went to scalpers?

Just after release in the few hours after there was up to 500 listings, most selling at there buy it now price within 15-30min or so.

Fair enough, but next to the tens of thousands or maybe even hundreds of thousands Valve sold, that's a drop in the bucket.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Valve still hasn't shipped my controller. I'm starting to get antsy. Might have to write a sternly worded letter...

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Godot is free forever and supports C# for programming by the way

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

great game btw gets my ever so desirable endorsement

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Seems like I was very lucky to get mine when I did! I spent about an hour trying to get one and kept being hit with the "There seems to have been an error initializing or updating your transaction" error. I watched it in my cart slip from 3-5 Days to 6-10 Days...

I hope more stock comes in soon and stays available! I really want to get one for my girlfriend. Or maybe I'll just get myself a backup one. 😆 Now my worry is getting myself a Steam Machine and Steam Frame.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

^ what's also frustrating about that, is even when you have steam itself set to use whatever version of proton as the default (so for me it's proton-cachyos-11) - if there's a native linux build, you often won't even know it's running on that instead of proton.

Sometimes I only even know it's happening because of what you said: weird issues / glitches / crashing. Then I go into the game properties, and go to the "force the use" and select whatever version of proton and it'll work so much better.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I'm sure with this first run, people were ready to just keep buying until it sold out.
I assume the next batch will be more normal.

Maybe they should just charge extra for the first run with full transparency that the price goes down after. People who want it NOW can pay, and scalpers are told upfront "you are going to lose a lot of money".

Probably still a bad idea for a lot of reasons. If it was an easy problem, I'm sure people would've had a fix for it by now.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: JustinWoodI cannot help but question what the point of having a 2 controller limit was when that limit was *per transaction*. At the very least, that should be limited to 2 per account until they've got a better idea of the demand. And frankly, I find the attitude of saying "Don't bother trying to deal with the scalpers" to be rather ridiculous. The markups I was seeing on Ebay yesterday were honestly obscene, to say nothing of the fact that they're blatantly against Ebay's ToS given that there's no way any of those sellers actually have the product in hand like they're supposed to.

many things could be done, it could be per account as you said, and also they could ask for the account to be older than a certain amount of months to be eligible to purchase, ofc scalpers probably have thought this and have thousands of bot accounts, but it could mitigate the issue, also maybe they could put a cap that if you havent spent like lets say 20 dollars on purchases in the store, you are not eligible to buy the controller... just some 2 minutes ideas from the top of my head.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphone

Quoting: Liam DaweMoving your personal Operating System is far far far easier than upping your entire social group to a different chat app, that has far less features and is more confusing. It's not realistic to expect that to happen any time soon either, especially as Matrix just overall - sucks.

Oh, and people keep bringing up this privacy stuff about age laws as if they only apply to Discord. Any serious chat app will also have to do similar things if they plan to run any services in countries where those laws apply. Thinking otherwise is daft, burying their heads in the sand level stupid.

Sorry, but that is mostly nonsense.

I run the GamingOnLinux Discord with over 8,000 people in it. I also run our Fluxer with a few hundred people in it. I also previously ran our Matrix rooms. I have a firm grasp on what I'm talking about here.

Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphoneFirst of all Matrix has nearly every feature Discord has *snip*

It doesn't. Discord has an entire ecosystem of plugins and bots, for starters. But the biggest issue is multiple rooms per-server. Matrix attempted to do something like it with you banding together multiple standalone rooms, but it works nothing like Discord does.

Matrix is nothing like Discord. Full stop. Saying otherwise is plain and simply false.

You don't like that Spaces are not 1:1 functional wise as Discord servers are, but what is the problem? I don't see a reason why multiple rooms would be worse. A more polished GUI and you would not even notice a huge difference to Discord servers.
You say Matrix sucks, because less people using it results in less people creating bots and plugins? That's exactly the reason why Linux desktop "sucked" for 3 decades, to tell it in your words. And it still would suck if nobody would ever have used and further developed it. All Matrix requires are more people and more donations and once it passes a critical mass, the development accelerates beyond what Discord is capable.

I did not say "Matrix is like Discord", I said "Matrix is the only full-featured alternative to Discord". That is a difference. If I don't rely on all these features, there are also other alternatives. If I want something that can replace Discord in most aspects on long term and does not bind me to an enshittification-service (aka centralized platform), then there is no alternative to Matrix. Simple as that. Other services lacking features and have even less size or the same issues as Discord has.

Edit:
I am aware that managing huge communities is another story for the moment. My arguments are more for private users creating a friends or guild space. But I also expect a lot of improvements for huge communities.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I cannot help but question what the point of having a 2 controller limit was when that limit was *per transaction*. At the very least, that should be limited to 2 per account until they've got a better idea of the demand. And frankly, I find the attitude of saying "Don't bother trying to deal with the scalpers" to be rather ridiculous. The markups I was seeing on Ebay yesterday were honestly obscene, to say nothing of the fact that they're blatantly against Ebay's ToS given that there's no way any of those sellers actually have the product in hand like they're supposed to.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Go after the scalpers! ffs... "criminals always find a way" isnt even an argument, this is like saying that police should be abolished because criminals always find loop holes to commit crimes.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: melkemind

Quoting: ArehandoroBloody scalpers.

There are like 4 listings on eBay. Is there any real evidence a large number of sales went to scalpers?

Just after release in the few hours after there was up to 500 listings, most selling at there buy it now price within 15-30min or so.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: ArehandoroBloody scalpers.

There are like 4 listings on eBay. Is there any real evidence a large number of sales went to scalpers?

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Well, on the bright side, this is great for Valve and people who want the steam controller to be supported for a long time. The more they sell, the more likely they are to stay committed to their product.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I liked the reservation system they had in place for the Steack Deck, hope they'll do it like this again at least for the Frame and Machine to mitigate the scalper issue and it was nicer to be able to "pre-order" stuff and get put into the line and get an estimate date than such sellouts where you read the news and once you get home after work and want to order stuff they're sold out with no proper way to at least "get into the line".

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: Mountain ManPeople on Reddit lamenting that there's not even the option to give Valve your money upfront, and then they ship as units become available, which would be the sensible way to do it.

Amen!

My thoughts exactly. I wouldn't care if my Steam Controller 2 didn't arrive until Christmas, just as long as I knew when to expect it. Right now the uncertainly is killing me 🤔

Not really... but I would like to know when I am going to be able to get my hands on one. Liam's review got me excited!

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: ElectricPrismI know it's frustrating, but we also should know that by selling out, Valves hardware is now even more prestegious which will drive sales more, because psychologically people always want what they CAN'T have.

I definitely fit into that category

But my mentality with the steam controller is that they will produce plenty of them in the long run since it goes hand in hand with their upcoming steam machine

It's the more "limited edition" type things that always get me psychologically wise lol

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

The Linux version is a real mess, in this state they'd be better of not having a Linux version at all, the problems have already been reported during the early access phase and obviously not being worked on while the game runs just fine on Proton. Interestingly the crash issues can be worked around when running the game in gamescope, which somehow implies the Linux version is purely targeted at Steam Deck / SteamOS.

I didn't do any real benchmarks but my fans stay more quiet on the Proton version as well.

Really upset of this half-assed Linux builds, if they're not broken right on the start they often break while time passes and having such a horrible experience does only damage to this otherwise brilliant game and raises frustration among the Linux buyers getting a broken experience out-of-the box. Sometimes not having a native version might be the better choice.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I have rented a Mumble server for years. My needs are simple. I only need voice communication. Mumble is a light weight application written in C++. No bells, whistles, privacy concerns or unnecessary feature bloat. My server was grandfathered in when a new owner acquired the company. My server has five user slots (one guest) for $14.40 a year and that is more than what I need. My brother-in-law and I chat most nights on the server, unfortunately my grandsons are of the Tik-Tok generation, so when I am playing games with them, I am forced to use Discord. The funny thing is, most of the time when they are playing games online with my son or their friends, they use their cell phones. Talk about a practice that kills the battery life on a cell phone.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: ElectricPrismValve focusing on scalpers would be a mistake, their goal should be to ramp up supply to meet the demand, not to waste energy going after a small percentage of purchasers doing what they want with their private property.

No matter what measures could be put in place, criminals always find ways around the rules, there's no point in punishing customers who want to eventually own 4+ controllers because someone __COULD__ lawfully resell their private property after they purchase it.

Does Valve provide any warranty on the Steam Controller? In the past, a manufacturer/retailer got around the scalper issue by simply requiring that the customer provide a receipt of purchase from an authorized reseller. Warranty was not transferable to a secondary owner. Surely, that still applies these days?

Of course, whether or not the purchaser cares about the warranty, is a completely different matter...

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: armageddon51I really want to give it try in virtualbox but the live iso (kde) will not boot so I gave up on it. I prefer Manjaro anyway which is as powerful but much easier of use.

I really recommend Garuda Linux if you are looking for Arch, but easier to use! As Garuda has a lot of tools that harnesses the power of Arch, while taming the issues that naturally occur because of the bleeding edge rolling release style of Arch.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphone

Quoting: Liam DaweMoving your personal Operating System is far far far easier than upping your entire social group to a different chat app, that has far less features and is more confusing. It's not realistic to expect that to happen any time soon either, especially as Matrix just overall - sucks.

Oh, and people keep bringing up this privacy stuff about age laws as if they only apply to Discord. Any serious chat app will also have to do similar things if they plan to run any services in countries where those laws apply. Thinking otherwise is daft, burying their heads in the sand level stupid.

Sorry, but that is mostly nonsense.

I run the GamingOnLinux Discord with over 8,000 people in it. I also run our Fluxer with a few hundred people in it. I also previously ran our Matrix rooms. I have a firm grasp on what I'm talking about here.

Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphoneFirst of all Matrix has nearly every feature Discord has *snip*

It doesn't. Discord has an entire ecosystem of plugins and bots, for starters. But the biggest issue is multiple rooms per-server. Matrix attempted to do something like it with you banding together multiple standalone rooms, but it works nothing like Discord does.

Matrix is nothing like Discord. Full stop. Saying otherwise is plain and simply false.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I thought 13 tons was a lot, but doing the math I guess it's not, really... Still a good sign, but they won't have an issue selling anything they make, I feel.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment