Latest 30 Comments
News - Thief: The Dark Project Remastered announced by Atari / Nightdive Studios
By neolith, 9 Jun 2026 at 9:10 am UTC
I think you can in almost all cases absolutely remaster an old game, put modern features and visuals into it and still keep the spirit and the look of the original. Take a look at the Quake1 remaster: QOL features, high resolutions, widescreen, 120fps, dynamic lighting, ambient occlusion, depth of field, colored lighting, updated effects and enemies and weapons with more polygons – yet it still looks and plays exactly as you remember Q1 did back in the day.
It is possible to do that and do the original justice. It's just that it takes quite a bit more work than updating the engine and upscaling/repainting textures.
By neolith, 9 Jun 2026 at 9:10 am UTC
Quoting: tpauI get what you are saying, but I disagree.Quoting: PaldinoXAs is typical with these kinds of remasters, I think the ultra HD textures and modern lighting on top of the low-poly environments make the game look significantly WORSE than the original.Yea i think if a game is too old, it needs to be done again from the ground up with a lot more polygons and fresh animations.
Otherwise it feels odd.
I think you can in almost all cases absolutely remaster an old game, put modern features and visuals into it and still keep the spirit and the look of the original. Take a look at the Quake1 remaster: QOL features, high resolutions, widescreen, 120fps, dynamic lighting, ambient occlusion, depth of field, colored lighting, updated effects and enemies and weapons with more polygons – yet it still looks and plays exactly as you remember Q1 did back in the day.
It is possible to do that and do the original justice. It's just that it takes quite a bit more work than updating the engine and upscaling/repainting textures.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By spymastermatt, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:30 am UTC
I was trying to separate PurpleLibraryGuy's suggestion of
And yes, a lot of the reactions to every announcement of AI use in any form feel to me like
"100% AI = bad, therefore 1% AI = bad"
By spymastermatt, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:30 am UTC
Quoting: tuubiIgnoring any and all other concerns: As long as they don't then imagine that they've actually written a story, and try to claim copyright to the result, I guess it would be fine? I'm sure it feels rewarding for them to get that story out. They haven't become an author, more like an amateur editor, but still, good for them.I guess this is where we differ. For me an author is the person that came up with the idea for the story, plot, characters, arcs, scenes, and development. So if the person (A) is doing all of that and describing them in the best detail they can to someone (B) who writes the actual words (be they computer or human) then in my mind A is still the author.
Quoting: tuubiI think the situation would be different if they'd actually written the whole story to the best of their ability, and used these tools to give them suggestions on how to make it better. A lot more effort, but there's a reason even established authors work for months, sometimes years, to write a novel, even with getting help and feedback from professional editors and readers. Most of us haven't got the talent or the patience for that, but that doesn't make it okay to just outsource the bulk of the effort.That's a fair point and I guess then it comes down to how much of each. My friend (who is not actually considering using AI at this moment I should point out) has written several scenes of the book himself. If he uses an AI to help fill in the gaps between the scenes, is there a moment for you when it becomes not his work, or is it simply if he uses the AI at all? Genuinely interested in your opinion here, I appreciate from your later comment that my tone has not reflected that.
Quoting: spymastermattI guess my analogy in this case would be is the songwriter who writes clever lyrics, less of a songwriter because they can't sing it themselves? Should we scorn them for using a singer instead of just singing it themselves like a real artist
Quoting: tuubiThe analogy doesn't work. Why wouldn't they be called a songwriter after writing a song? They'll get their share of the royalties. They just can't be called a singer. Just like your friend isn't an author after prompting and editing a book.I guess then the problem for me is that we don't yet have a view or word to separate the ideasmith from the author in the way we do the songwriter and singer.
Quoting: spymastermattAgain, we've taken the idea that AI can make a book given a one sentence prompt and blanket swept that that must therefore be the only way people use it
Quoting: tuubiNo, what you've done is ascribe a lack of understanding to people with valid criticisms of the technology and how it is being used in the real world. Sure, some people react with their gut, but critics do include a lot of people who are actually in the know, but crucially not invested.I apologise that this is how I have come across, I was intending to question what feels like gut reactions but I appreciate that has come across as assuming people don't understand.
I was trying to separate PurpleLibraryGuy's suggestion of
Quoting: Purple Library Guyif someone tells a large language model "Write me a book about this" and thinks it's theirs because they had an idea (which apparently does happen) . . . that's incredibly stupid.from the idea of people using AI to fill in gaps rather than write the whole story. From my perspective there's a big range between Wrote the book entirely myself -> Had the AI spell and grammer check -> Had the AI fix up some scenes to make them read better -> ... all the way through to "Told the AI to write a sci-fi book about an alien who lives on earth" (which I 100% agree removes any creative direction from the human)
And yes, a lot of the reactions to every announcement of AI use in any form feel to me like
"100% AI = bad, therefore 1% AI = bad"
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By pb, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:20 am UTC
By pb, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:20 am UTC
Quoting: SlaxerAs an artist by trade, I'm not worried about AI replacing artists. That's not the problem.Yeah, the AI is incapable of replacing artists, but it's capable of chewing up all the artists' works and spitting out something more or less acceptable by an executive. So yeah, it won't replace artists but it will be used (by CEOs) as a replacement for a junior illustrator, who with some work, persistence and money (to support day-to-day living) might have grown to be an artist, something that will now be a bit harder...
News - Twisted mystery point and click adventure Creepy Tale: Snow Child released for Linux
By Eike, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:15 am UTC
By Eike, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:15 am UTC
Thanks for pointing out, I missed that one!
News - EXODUS looks like a good fit for Mass Effect fans wanting something more
By hanx42, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:08 am UTC
By hanx42, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:08 am UTC
If i had just watched the Trailer, i would have guessed it's a DLC for Mass Effect Andromeda. The graphic style, the setting, the followers, combat etc... it just has 99% ME vibes.
Could be a good game, would be nice you could choose a female protagonist though.
Could be a good game, would be nice you could choose a female protagonist though.
News - Company of Heroes - Definitive Edition revealed to release Fall 2026
By neolith, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:48 am UTC
As much as I've loved playing CoH, I've also got to say that I have grown quite tired of remakes. Not only do long for some new experiences every once in a while, but I also think that many of them are just nostalgia bait. And sadly not all remakes are technically good IMO – for every C&C or AoE2 there seem to be a dozen that are just a bit worse than the original with a community patch.
By neolith, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:48 am UTC
We're truly in the era of safe bets with sequels and remakesYeah, we do...
As much as I've loved playing CoH, I've also got to say that I have grown quite tired of remakes. Not only do long for some new experiences every once in a while, but I also think that many of them are just nostalgia bait. And sadly not all remakes are technically good IMO – for every C&C or AoE2 there seem to be a dozen that are just a bit worse than the original with a community patch.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By tuubi, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:47 am UTC
I think the situation would be different if they'd actually written the whole story to the best of their ability, and used these tools to give them suggestions on how to make it better. A lot more effort, but there's a reason even established authors work for months, sometimes years, to write a novel, even with getting help and feedback from professional editors and readers. Most of us haven't got the talent or the patience for that, but that doesn't make it okay to just outsource the bulk of the effort.
I know this is not the first time we've sacrificed something important, like the environment, for profit and/or convenience. But it sucks every time.
By tuubi, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:47 am UTC
Quoting: spymastermattIgnoring any and all other concerns: As long as they don't then imagine that they've actually written a story, and try to claim copyright to the result, I guess it would be fine? I'm sure it feels rewarding for them to get that story out. They haven't become an author, more like an amateur editor, but still, good for them.Quoting: Purple Library Guyif someone tells a large language model "Write me a book about this" and thinks it's theirs because they had an idea (which apparently does happen) . . . that's incredibly stupid.Absolutely agree, 100%!
But if someone develops an entire story, with a good plot and character development and twists and turns and they get the AI to actually put it into words because they just can't, and then they enrich it by reading it back and tweaking and adding and refining to make it the story they had in their head but could never express because of their ADHD, is their story less good because they couldn't write each individual word?
This, as you might have guessed, is a real story about a friend of mine who has fantastic ideas for stories, and describes great scenes from this particular book they would love to write, but can't. AI might give them the chance to do so. And yes you're absolutely right, the story has changed and refined and got better each time they've come to me over the years and said "I've changed this bit and added this bit between those scenes and tweaked this characters backstory a bit". But they're still doing that despite not writing a complete book, just snippets.
I think the situation would be different if they'd actually written the whole story to the best of their ability, and used these tools to give them suggestions on how to make it better. A lot more effort, but there's a reason even established authors work for months, sometimes years, to write a novel, even with getting help and feedback from professional editors and readers. Most of us haven't got the talent or the patience for that, but that doesn't make it okay to just outsource the bulk of the effort.
Quoting: spymastermattI guess my analogy in this case would be is the songwriter who writes clever lyrics, less of a songwriter because they can't sing it themselves? Should we scorn them for using a singer instead of just singing it themselves like a real artistThe analogy doesn't work. Why wouldn't they be called a songwriter after writing a song? They'll get their share of the royalties. They just can't be called a singer. Just like your friend isn't an author after prompting and editing a book.
Quoting: spymastermattAgain, we've taken the idea that AI can make a book given a one sentence prompt and blanket swept that that must therefore be the only way people use itNo, what you've done is ascribe a lack of understanding to people with valid criticisms of the technology and how it is being used in the real world. Sure, some people react with their gut, but critics do include a lot of people who are actually in the know, but crucially not invested.
I know this is not the first time we've sacrificed something important, like the environment, for profit and/or convenience. But it sucks every time.
News - Valheim 1.0 arrives in September with the Deep North biome
By Chrisznix, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:44 am UTC
Best advice though: go in with one to three friends. Its so much more fun to struggle, and helping comrades to get their gear back has led to the most hilarious scenes in my entire gaming life.
I hope to get my gang back for the 1.0.
By Chrisznix, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:44 am UTC
Quoting: NezchanI'll probably never be good enough to see most of the biomes, if we're being honest, but real cool they're finally completing all the lands.Been there, but you can do a lot about it! I really suck at Soulskike games, but in valheim you first and foremost have to find your own rythm. Most of the time the answer is good preparation and not to panic. In combat, i tended to run far too much, which drained stamina and kept me dying. Another thing to do if you struggle: drop down the death penalty to casual or so. The skill drain is too exhausting for many people before they managed to make good use of the no-skill-drain timer, and even then it is helpful. As for the ashlands... yeah, PTSD-Country.
Best advice though: go in with one to three friends. Its so much more fun to struggle, and helping comrades to get their gear back has led to the most hilarious scenes in my entire gaming life.
I hope to get my gang back for the 1.0.
News - EXODUS looks like a good fit for Mass Effect fans wanting something more
By Supay, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:35 am UTC
By Supay, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:35 am UTC
You may want to add that it is also a book series by Peter Hamilton. It's called EXODUS as well, with the first book being named The Archimedes Engine.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By Phlebiac, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:34 am UTC
By Phlebiac, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:34 am UTC
I get the idea when the tires have "flames", but what's with the green glow?
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By spymastermatt, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:28 am UTC
But if someone develops an entire story, with a good plot and character development and twists and turns and they get the AI to actually put it into words because they just can't, and then they enrich it by reading it back and tweaking and adding and refining to make it the story they had in their head but could never express because of their ADHD, is their story less good because they couldn't write each individual word?
This, as you might have guessed, is a real story about a friend of mine who has fantastic ideas for stories, and describes great scenes from this particular book they would love to write, but can't. AI might give them the chance to do so. And yes you're absolutely right, the story has changed and refined and got better each time they've come to me over the years and said "I've changed this bit and added this bit between those scenes and tweaked this characters backstory a bit". But they're still doing that despite not writing a complete book, just snippets.
I guess my analogy in this case would be is the songwriter who writes clever lyrics, less of a songwriter because they can't sing it themselves? Should we scorn them for using a singer instead of just singing it themselves like a real artist
Again, we've taken the idea that AI can make a book given a one sentence prompt and blanket swept that that must therefore be the only way people use it
By spymastermatt, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:28 am UTC
Quoting: Purple Library Guyif someone tells a large language model "Write me a book about this" and thinks it's theirs because they had an idea (which apparently does happen) . . . that's incredibly stupid.Absolutely agree, 100%!
But if someone develops an entire story, with a good plot and character development and twists and turns and they get the AI to actually put it into words because they just can't, and then they enrich it by reading it back and tweaking and adding and refining to make it the story they had in their head but could never express because of their ADHD, is their story less good because they couldn't write each individual word?
This, as you might have guessed, is a real story about a friend of mine who has fantastic ideas for stories, and describes great scenes from this particular book they would love to write, but can't. AI might give them the chance to do so. And yes you're absolutely right, the story has changed and refined and got better each time they've come to me over the years and said "I've changed this bit and added this bit between those scenes and tweaked this characters backstory a bit". But they're still doing that despite not writing a complete book, just snippets.
I guess my analogy in this case would be is the songwriter who writes clever lyrics, less of a songwriter because they can't sing it themselves? Should we scorn them for using a singer instead of just singing it themselves like a real artist
Again, we've taken the idea that AI can make a book given a one sentence prompt and blanket swept that that must therefore be the only way people use it
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By spymastermatt, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:14 am UTC
Yes there is awe in the ability to do something prior to the machines - the pyramids are impressive not because we couldn't possibly make them today, but because they were made without modern machinery - but that doesn't mean I would consider building a large scale building without the use of cranes today anything other than insane.
For me what makes good art is either the above, or mostly the choice of subject and detail.
For me the Mona Lisa is not a good painting because it took a long time and was difficult to paint, but because the choice of expression is so enigmatic and not really seen in other paintings.
I saw a fantastic sculpture in Birmingham UK made out of knives from an amnesty. It must have taken hours to put together, but that's not what made it impressive. It was good art (to me) because of what it represented.
By spymastermatt, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:14 am UTC
Quoting: SlaxerSo to draw the analogy again, is the bespoke table made by a carpentry workshop less valuable because they used a CNC to cut the top and bore the fixing holes? Did they put less creative design into it because they used the machine?Quoting: scaineAh, the "it's just a tool" argument. I'm not a fan of this.Me neither, I hate it. It's the start of something that has largely only existed in science-fiction, and something that has never existed before in human history - but it's just a tool, they say. Yes, I'm aware that in its current state it's technically still not anything close to what the term "artificial intelligence" implies, but still. I feel like I'm being gaslit whenever someone says it.
Quoting: spymastermattIn particular your point about how you would make a bad table because you lack the skills, demonstrates for me exactly what I'm talking about. Here we have an actual game studio, who's professionals are using it as a tool and we are slating it because we assume suddenly that they've fired all the professionals and had people with no creative skill use the tool.As an artist by trade, I'm not worried about AI replacing artists. That's not the problem. I just believe that the painstaking monotony of sculpting every scale on a dragon, or modeling the treads of a tire by hand, or having the discipline involved in painting something like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel over years is what makes art beautiful. There is always an element of pain in any form of creation, and it's the secret ingredient to good art. Hypothetically, if you knew that every piece of Renaissance art in Italy was actually just made by a machine, do you think it'd be worth flying over to Italy to see? They'd completely lose their significance. AI isn't going to enable artists to be more creative by liberating them from hard work. At the very least, its use by artists is eventually going to make artists lazier and less skilled at their craft. At most, it's going to make art pointless.
Yes there is awe in the ability to do something prior to the machines - the pyramids are impressive not because we couldn't possibly make them today, but because they were made without modern machinery - but that doesn't mean I would consider building a large scale building without the use of cranes today anything other than insane.
For me what makes good art is either the above, or mostly the choice of subject and detail.
For me the Mona Lisa is not a good painting because it took a long time and was difficult to paint, but because the choice of expression is so enigmatic and not really seen in other paintings.
I saw a fantastic sculpture in Birmingham UK made out of knives from an amnesty. It must have taken hours to put together, but that's not what made it impressive. It was good art (to me) because of what it represented.
News - KDE Plasma waves goodbye to X11 for Plasma 6.8
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:12 am UTC
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:12 am UTC
I don't know if my problem is related to X11 vs Wayland, but when I used Mint as my first distro it was fine on my PC. Then I got a laptop and everything looked tiny, I tried to use fractional scaling and found it was busted on Mint so I had to use font scaling, but that just looked ugly, and some programs would not respect neither fractional scaling, nor font scaling and I was so annoyed and I found out if I use KDE and maybe Wayland, this problem will be gone, so I switched to Tuxedo OS and now my problem is gone. The only issue I have now on Wayland is I was used all my life to switch keyboard layouts with SHIFT+ALT, but on Wayland for some reason only ALT+SHIFT works.
Overall, I don't mind that DEs are dropping X11, I'm still new to Linux, but I've had more issues with X11 than Wayland so I'm not sad to see it go. From what I've read both have some good and bad sides, X11 is too old and convoluted and fragmented and it can never have some of the features that Wayland has, Wayland also doesn't have some features and stability that X11 has, but in the long run Wayland can reach feature parity with X11 and even surpass it. I don't care about the war between both, I just want to be practical and to use what works for me.
Overall, I don't mind that DEs are dropping X11, I'm still new to Linux, but I've had more issues with X11 than Wayland so I'm not sad to see it go. From what I've read both have some good and bad sides, X11 is too old and convoluted and fragmented and it can never have some of the features that Wayland has, Wayland also doesn't have some features and stability that X11 has, but in the long run Wayland can reach feature parity with X11 and even surpass it. I don't care about the war between both, I just want to be practical and to use what works for me.
News - Bloober Team revealed action-adventure horror Star Trek: Shadow Frontier
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:05 am UTC
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:05 am UTC
Star Trek isn't something I associate with horror. Same with Star Wars, but I guess everything is possible.
News - Defender of the Crown: The Legend Returns arrives in August
By Phlebiac, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:05 am UTC
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3220180/Vestigia_Joust/
By Phlebiac, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:05 am UTC
Quoting: iiariThere is absolutely a place for a modern, truly outstanding jousting mini-game.Screenshots are pretty, reviews are decent. I know nothing about it, though:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3220180/Vestigia_Joust/
News - Thief: The Dark Project Remastered announced by Atari / Nightdive Studios
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:03 am UTC
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:03 am UTC
Quoting: tpauIt's better to have a modern remaster for some of those games. Other such examples are OpenMW, fheroes2, VCMI and some other stuff like that which improve performance and compatibility with modern hardware.Quoting: PaldinoXAs is typical with these kinds of remasters, I think the ultra HD textures and modern lighting on top of the low-poly environments make the game look significantly WORSE than the original.Yea i think if a game is too old, it needs to be done again from the ground up with a lot more polygons and fresh animations.
Otherwise it feels odd.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By Purple Library Guy, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:02 am UTC
None of that is going to happen if you're just getting AI to fill up the word count.
By Purple Library Guy, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:02 am UTC
Quoting: SlaxerI can't do art to save my life. But I do a bit of writing, and I will say that if someone tells a large language model "Write me a book about this" and thinks it's theirs because they had an idea (which apparently does happen) . . . that's incredibly stupid. Most of the ideas in a book are created in the process of writing it; you might start with a basic framework, but it's while you're knocking out paragraph after paragraph that you make it rich, developing the ideas you had, coming up with new ones in the flow of making. You'll think "OK, gonna write a few pages about this" and a couple of pages in you realize there's this other stuff that can connect in. You realize who a character is as you write dialogue and it comes out a particular way. I wouldn't be surprised if art can be kind of like that too.Quoting: scaineAh, the "it's just a tool" argument. I'm not a fan of this.Me neither, I hate it. It's the start of something that has largely only existed in science-fiction, and something that has never existed before in human history - but it's just a tool, they say. Yes, I'm aware that in its current state it's technically still not anything close to what the term "artificial intelligence" implies, but still. I feel like I'm being gaslit whenever someone says it.
Quoting: spymastermattIn particular your point about how you would make a bad table because you lack the skills, demonstrates for me exactly what I'm talking about. Here we have an actual game studio, who's professionals are using it as a tool and we are slating it because we assume suddenly that they've fired all the professionals and had people with no creative skill use the tool.As an artist by trade, I'm not worried about AI replacing artists. That's not the problem. I just believe that the painstaking monotony of sculpting every scale on a dragon, or modeling the treads of a tire by hand, or having the discipline involved in painting something like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel over years is what makes art beautiful. There is always an element of pain in any form of creation, and it's the secret ingredient to good art. Hypothetically, if you knew that every piece of Renaissance art in Italy was actually just made by a machine, do you think it'd be worth flying over to Italy to see? They'd completely lose their significance. AI isn't going to enable artists to be more creative by liberating them from hard work. At the very least, its use by artists is eventually going to make artists lazier and less skilled at their craft. At most, it's going to make art pointless.
None of that is going to happen if you're just getting AI to fill up the word count.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 5:50 am UTC
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 5:50 am UTC
I don't mind the AI part this much, I also don't like AI very much, but also use it sometimes and at the same time I don't care about it.
The problem I see with this game is the visuals look off-putting in the sense that your taxi is the same old, funky style and all the rest of the cars are modern day so it looks out of place. The older cars from the previous Crazy Taxi games made the world look and feel way more appealing.
Another thing that I noticed in the trailer is when they show in the rear view mirror the passenger making faces, it looked like some Disney Pixar animation and it looks to me like uncanny valley. The same facial expressions and body movements that are currently employed in Blizzard games like World of Warcraft and Overwatch that I really dislike.
If they just took something like Crazy Taxi 3 and remade the graphics in the same slightly cartoony style with vibrant colors and not too detailed like this is supposed to be it would be better. But currently nothing about this game makes me the least bit excited to look forward to playing it. Even if there was no AI, the game in a few words look like p**p.
The problem I see with this game is the visuals look off-putting in the sense that your taxi is the same old, funky style and all the rest of the cars are modern day so it looks out of place. The older cars from the previous Crazy Taxi games made the world look and feel way more appealing.
Another thing that I noticed in the trailer is when they show in the rear view mirror the passenger making faces, it looked like some Disney Pixar animation and it looks to me like uncanny valley. The same facial expressions and body movements that are currently employed in Blizzard games like World of Warcraft and Overwatch that I really dislike.
If they just took something like Crazy Taxi 3 and remade the graphics in the same slightly cartoony style with vibrant colors and not too detailed like this is supposed to be it would be better. But currently nothing about this game makes me the least bit excited to look forward to playing it. Even if there was no AI, the game in a few words look like p**p.
News - Defender of the Crown: The Legend Returns arrives in August
By iiari, 9 Jun 2026 at 3:54 am UTC
By iiari, 9 Jun 2026 at 3:54 am UTC
Quoting: ChrisznixI still can playback those Amiga mod tracks from Defender in my head, and i remenmber to win the game with Wolfric the Wild by jousting only. Good times!There is absolutely a place for a modern, truly outstanding jousting mini-game.
News - Valheim 1.0 arrives in September with the Deep North biome
By Nezchan, 9 Jun 2026 at 2:17 am UTC
By Nezchan, 9 Jun 2026 at 2:17 am UTC
I'll probably never be good enough to see most of the biomes, if we're being honest, but real cool they're finally completing all the lands.
My hope is there'll be a round of overhauling parts of the game they haven't touched in a while, with the experience gained from doing all the later game stuff. Polish things up, maybe throw a few scraps to folks like me not good enough to get to the mid/late game, and so forth.
My hope is there'll be a round of overhauling parts of the game they haven't touched in a while, with the experience gained from doing all the later game stuff. Polish things up, maybe throw a few scraps to folks like me not good enough to get to the mid/late game, and so forth.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By Slaxer, 9 Jun 2026 at 1:42 am UTC
By Slaxer, 9 Jun 2026 at 1:42 am UTC
Quoting: scaineAh, the "it's just a tool" argument. I'm not a fan of this.Me neither, I hate it. It's the start of something that has largely only existed in science-fiction, and something that has never existed before in human history - but it's just a tool, they say. Yes, I'm aware that in its current state it's technically still not anything close to what the term "artificial intelligence" implies, but still. I feel like I'm being gaslit whenever someone says it.
Quoting: spymastermattIn particular your point about how you would make a bad table because you lack the skills, demonstrates for me exactly what I'm talking about. Here we have an actual game studio, who's professionals are using it as a tool and we are slating it because we assume suddenly that they've fired all the professionals and had people with no creative skill use the tool.As an artist by trade, I'm not worried about AI replacing artists. That's not the problem. I just believe that the painstaking monotony of sculpting every scale on a dragon, or modeling the treads of a tire by hand, or having the discipline involved in painting something like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel over years is what makes art beautiful. There is always an element of pain in any form of creation, and it's the secret ingredient to good art. Hypothetically, if you knew that every piece of Renaissance art in Italy was actually just made by a machine, do you think it'd be worth flying over to Italy to see? They'd completely lose their significance. AI isn't going to enable artists to be more creative by liberating them from hard work. At the very least, its use by artists is eventually going to make artists lazier and less skilled at their craft. At most, it's going to make art pointless.
News - KDE Plasma waves goodbye to X11 for Plasma 6.8
By dmoonfire, 9 Jun 2026 at 1:22 am UTC
By dmoonfire, 9 Jun 2026 at 1:22 am UTC
Quoting: Nic264I have yet to get that to work and I disconnect my laptop from the dock but leave it running every day. Now, I'm a bit behind on NixOS 25.11 because I can't get updated to 26.05, but having the panel move doesn't work now.Quoting: dmoonfireWhile I'm sad because KDE Wayland doesn't handle saving the layout based on monitors (I want secondary only while plugged into the doc but the docked bar doesn't move with Wayland)Is your concern still valid? I run Wayland and:
- When my laptop is unplugged my panel is on my internal screen.
- When it's plugged to my 2 external screens at my desk I get all 3 screens but only the external screens have panels.
- When I plug into my TV my internal screen turns off and my TV screen has my panel.
I don't remember exactly how I set it up, but I don't think I had to do anything special to get this behavior.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By spymastermatt, 8 Jun 2026 at 11:37 pm UTC
Mostly the conflation of the use and the technology. It seems to me a lot of the flack for the use of GenAI comes from the way it's been used, spilling over into the use itself. Yes people are generating slop, yes people are using it to produce 'features' their users weren't asking for, but to say that makes the technology bad in any use case is overgeneralising and punishing people who use it creatively because there are people who don't.
In particular your point about how you would make a bad table because you lack the skills, demonstrates for me exactly what I'm talking about. Here we have an actual game studio, who's professionals are using it as a tool and we are slating it because we assume suddenly that they've fired all the professionals and had people with no creative skill use the tool.
And as @mindedie pointed out earlier, badly made games were a thing long before AI
From my perspective it also enables the opposite, people with good ideas for games, but without the skills / time / money to make art for it can now make their game.
The other thing that attracts a lot of scorn is people using it to create art "instead of employing an artist" but often times that's a false dichotomy. The choice is not AI art or human art, it's AI art or no art. The art in this context is simply not worth enough to warrant the cost of a human artist.
As for the illegally stolen reference material the AI uses, it's a tricky one for me personally because I don't pirate and I do believe that if you work to produce something you should get paid for it (provided there's a market of course). But I'm not entirely sure that the way AI has looked at art and uses it to generate more is all that different from the popularity of anime-style games. Humans tend to form their own style based on the things they've seen and they didn't necessarily buy all the artwork they've seen before letting it influence their style.
This is particularly relevant for this particular case, where the art the AI is replicating is likely their own material anyway. And it wildly depends on whether you have huge creative input and generate your own style, or have the machine copy someone else's, but copy-cat style art has existed forever and we used to call it "movements" rather than slate every artist as illegally copying their compatriots.
Regarding the electricity usage, people often seem to compare usage of AI against no usage. Taking the usage from this [article](https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/2506.17016v1) we see a usage of 1 Wh per image. If you assume that image would be generated by an artist using a modest setup, they're using 150 watts, so they would need to make the image in 24 seconds to be more energy efficient.
Water is a trickier one, and it seems insane to me that the evaporative cooling techniques that are used are not capturing the evaporated water once it has shed it's heat but:
According to [this paper](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688cb407dc6688ed50878367/Water_use_in_data_centre_and_AI_report.pdf) from the UK government we get some interesting figures:
The same article puts the current UK public water system alone at 14 billion litres per day (it's unclear whether this includes existing data centres) - Side note, they misquote it as 14,000 billion but if you follow the references it eventually leads [here](https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-10248/CBP-10248.pdf) which clarifies
So yes the usage is significant and there are multiplying factors (data centres need more water when it's hot.... so do people) but I don't think it's beyond the ken of man to solve this
Perhaps the best thing we could do would be to either put a limit on people using it (particularly for frivolous things) or ensure that the companies making (cough) money from this are paying towards the solutions, thus forcing price rises, thus limiting usage etc etc
And who knows, maybe the only reason we're even getting another crazy taxi is because GenAI drops the cost to a point where it's worth taking the risk, rather than replicating the multiplayer, microtransaction, minor-change-to-a-franchise, format that guarantees to make it's money back, i.e. HumanSlop
By spymastermatt, 8 Jun 2026 at 11:37 pm UTC
Quoting: scaineAh, the "it's just a tool" argument. I'm not a fan of this.I take some of your points (and god is it good to speak to someone with a reasoned discourse) but there's a few things I disagree with
Mostly the conflation of the use and the technology. It seems to me a lot of the flack for the use of GenAI comes from the way it's been used, spilling over into the use itself. Yes people are generating slop, yes people are using it to produce 'features' their users weren't asking for, but to say that makes the technology bad in any use case is overgeneralising and punishing people who use it creatively because there are people who don't.
In particular your point about how you would make a bad table because you lack the skills, demonstrates for me exactly what I'm talking about. Here we have an actual game studio, who's professionals are using it as a tool and we are slating it because we assume suddenly that they've fired all the professionals and had people with no creative skill use the tool.
And as @mindedie pointed out earlier, badly made games were a thing long before AI
From my perspective it also enables the opposite, people with good ideas for games, but without the skills / time / money to make art for it can now make their game.
The other thing that attracts a lot of scorn is people using it to create art "instead of employing an artist" but often times that's a false dichotomy. The choice is not AI art or human art, it's AI art or no art. The art in this context is simply not worth enough to warrant the cost of a human artist.
As for the illegally stolen reference material the AI uses, it's a tricky one for me personally because I don't pirate and I do believe that if you work to produce something you should get paid for it (provided there's a market of course). But I'm not entirely sure that the way AI has looked at art and uses it to generate more is all that different from the popularity of anime-style games. Humans tend to form their own style based on the things they've seen and they didn't necessarily buy all the artwork they've seen before letting it influence their style.
This is particularly relevant for this particular case, where the art the AI is replicating is likely their own material anyway. And it wildly depends on whether you have huge creative input and generate your own style, or have the machine copy someone else's, but copy-cat style art has existed forever and we used to call it "movements" rather than slate every artist as illegally copying their compatriots.
Regarding the electricity usage, people often seem to compare usage of AI against no usage. Taking the usage from this [article](https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/2506.17016v1) we see a usage of 1 Wh per image. If you assume that image would be generated by an artist using a modest setup, they're using 150 watts, so they would need to make the image in 24 seconds to be more energy efficient.
Water is a trickier one, and it seems insane to me that the evaporative cooling techniques that are used are not capturing the evaporated water once it has shed it's heat but:
According to [this paper](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688cb407dc6688ed50878367/Water_use_in_data_centre_and_AI_report.pdf) from the UK government we get some interesting figures:
Globally, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the data centre sectorSo that puts it currently at 1.53 billion litres per day
consumes over 560 billion litres of water annually. Projections indicate this figure could
rise dramatically, reaching as high as 1,200 billion litres by 2030.13
The same article puts the current UK public water system alone at 14 billion litres per day (it's unclear whether this includes existing data centres) - Side note, they misquote it as 14,000 billion but if you follow the references it eventually leads [here](https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-10248/CBP-10248.pdf) which clarifies
So yes the usage is significant and there are multiplying factors (data centres need more water when it's hot.... so do people) but I don't think it's beyond the ken of man to solve this
Perhaps the best thing we could do would be to either put a limit on people using it (particularly for frivolous things) or ensure that the companies making (cough) money from this are paying towards the solutions, thus forcing price rises, thus limiting usage etc etc
And who knows, maybe the only reason we're even getting another crazy taxi is because GenAI drops the cost to a point where it's worth taking the risk, rather than replicating the multiplayer, microtransaction, minor-change-to-a-franchise, format that guarantees to make it's money back, i.e. HumanSlop
News - Valve continue working towards the Steam Frame with a new SteamVR Beta
By charles222, 8 Jun 2026 at 11:18 pm UTC
By charles222, 8 Jun 2026 at 11:18 pm UTC
Quoting: scaineThe best thing about FPS games in VR, to me, was that you actually had to move the wands to aim. Feels really natural imo.Quoting: charles222100% this - Elite:Dangerous was an incredible upgrade on the pancake mode. Overload (a Descent-like) was superb too. As was Project Cars 2, although I'm not big on racing games, it was pretty amazing being to look around inside the cockpit as you drove.Quoting: PoliticsOfStarvingWhat kind of games do people play in VR? Is it basically just FPS?For me the best part of VR was flying games. You're sitting down so there's no worries about room space really, and being able to actually look around (especially over your shoulder for combat) rules. Driving games would probably rock too.
I never thought VR gaming would take off, but it seems people do want it. I guess when I think of VR I think of lame golf demos and lightsaber duels that my nephew showed me about 5 years ago.
In fact, with the exception of Alyx, I was a bit underwhelmed with most FPS-like games. Superhot was pretty cool, and Space Pirate Trainer, but anything that required you to do a lot of movement left me a bit cold.
Then there's all the beat-based games: Beat Saber, Groove Gunner, Pistol Whip, BoxVR, and the rest. They're great and you get a bit of a workout while you're playing too, but they require a tiny bit of space to stand up in.
I loved my stint into VR. I'm very excited to see how Frame shapes up.
News - Steam Survey for May 2026 is out - Linux down at 3.99% but still above macOS
By Slaxer, 8 Jun 2026 at 10:47 pm UTC
By Slaxer, 8 Jun 2026 at 10:47 pm UTC
I want my children's children to see Linux with a 25% desktop user share.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By scaine, 8 Jun 2026 at 10:30 pm UTC
One thing I do like about your analogy is this - if you give me, personally, a powersaw, I'll give you an absolutely shitty table because I have no idea about carpentry. And that's what we get with genAI - pure slop. It doesn't matter how much "artistic direction" you're going to fit into a prompt if you have no idea about art.
I'd prefer that creatives are given the freedom and time to not use the plagiarism machine and just create something that they're paid for and probably love doing, and we can enjoy that work without wondering how many households experienced brownouts and contaminated water to produce such shitty art.
I read a lot of fiction - mainly fantasy and sci-fi, right? I challenge you to ask anyone like me, "would you rather wait a year to read your favourite author's next book, or would you prefer to have genAI write a new book in the same style as that author, and you can read it next week?"
No-one - absolutely not a single reader - would choose genAI.
By scaine, 8 Jun 2026 at 10:30 pm UTC
Quoting: spymastermattSaying that a studio shouldn't use GenAI at all feels a bit to me like saying I won't buy furniture if the carpenter used a power sawAh, the "it's just a tool" argument. I'm not a fan of this. Powertools genuinely made very specific drudge work easier for skilled tradesmen, unlike genAI, which is more akin to robot automation taking jobs away from car factory workers. But the metaphor entirely breaks down when you realise that genAI isn't just taking jobs away, it's also spurring massive datacentre investment - which is impacting water and electricity supplies in the American (mostly) towns where they're being thrown up, while driving up prices of RAM and GPUs. It's spurring nuclear re-investment over a long term (25 years minimum). It's definitely ending jobs far faster than powertools ever could. And then there's the illegally obtained training data, the cost of training, the loss-leading pricing, the billionaire's and corpos funding all this, the top-heavy, bubble-like investment, the insane marketing, the force-fed product "enhancements" and everything else that's wrong with this car-crash tech.
I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if it's the very artists people are trying to protect, who wants to use GenAI for the same reason... Is does donkey work faster.
Imagine you're creating the new assets for a game and you want to trial some ideas. GenAI allows you to give it what you have and direct some tweaks, and the easily visualise that in multiple in-game contexts. And yes, the bottom line is that takes some work away from artists by making each artist able to work quicker, but so did power tools for the trades.
I also think a lot of people seem to view GenAI as "give it a sentence and it will draw whatever you need" but if you've ever actually used it to make something where you have a specific vision, you know how much of the artistic direction still comes from you. Again, the power saw does not make the table, but it sure makes it easier
One thing I do like about your analogy is this - if you give me, personally, a powersaw, I'll give you an absolutely shitty table because I have no idea about carpentry. And that's what we get with genAI - pure slop. It doesn't matter how much "artistic direction" you're going to fit into a prompt if you have no idea about art.
I'd prefer that creatives are given the freedom and time to not use the plagiarism machine and just create something that they're paid for and probably love doing, and we can enjoy that work without wondering how many households experienced brownouts and contaminated water to produce such shitty art.
I read a lot of fiction - mainly fantasy and sci-fi, right? I challenge you to ask anyone like me, "would you rather wait a year to read your favourite author's next book, or would you prefer to have genAI write a new book in the same style as that author, and you can read it next week?"
No-one - absolutely not a single reader - would choose genAI.
News - Valve continue working towards the Steam Frame with a new SteamVR Beta
By scaine, 8 Jun 2026 at 10:11 pm UTC
In fact, with the exception of Alyx, I was a bit underwhelmed with most FPS-like games. Superhot was pretty cool, and Space Pirate Trainer, but anything that required you to do a lot of movement left me a bit cold.
Then there's all the beat-based games: Beat Saber, Groove Gunner, Pistol Whip, BoxVR, and the rest. They're great and you get a bit of a workout while you're playing too, but they require a tiny bit of space to stand up in.
I loved my stint into VR. I'm very excited to see how Frame shapes up.
By scaine, 8 Jun 2026 at 10:11 pm UTC
Quoting: charles222100% this - Elite:Dangerous was an incredible upgrade on the pancake mode. Overload (a Descent-like) was superb too. As was Project Cars 2, although I'm not big on racing games, it was pretty amazing being to look around inside the cockpit as you drove.Quoting: PoliticsOfStarvingWhat kind of games do people play in VR? Is it basically just FPS?For me the best part of VR was flying games. You're sitting down so there's no worries about room space really, and being able to actually look around (especially over your shoulder for combat) rules. Driving games would probably rock too.
I never thought VR gaming would take off, but it seems people do want it. I guess when I think of VR I think of lame golf demos and lightsaber duels that my nephew showed me about 5 years ago.
In fact, with the exception of Alyx, I was a bit underwhelmed with most FPS-like games. Superhot was pretty cool, and Space Pirate Trainer, but anything that required you to do a lot of movement left me a bit cold.
Then there's all the beat-based games: Beat Saber, Groove Gunner, Pistol Whip, BoxVR, and the rest. They're great and you get a bit of a workout while you're playing too, but they require a tiny bit of space to stand up in.
I loved my stint into VR. I'm very excited to see how Frame shapes up.
News - Valve continue working towards the Steam Frame with a new SteamVR Beta
By charles222, 8 Jun 2026 at 9:08 pm UTC
By charles222, 8 Jun 2026 at 9:08 pm UTC
Quoting: PoliticsOfStarvingWhat kind of games do people play in VR? Is it basically just FPS?For me the best part of VR was flying games. You're sitting down so there's no worries about room space really, and being able to actually look around (especially over your shoulder for combat) rules. Driving games would probably rock too.
I never thought VR gaming would take off, but it seems people do want it. I guess when I think of VR I think of lame golf demos and lightsaber duels that my nephew showed me about 5 years ago.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By spymastermatt, 8 Jun 2026 at 9:07 pm UTC
By spymastermatt, 8 Jun 2026 at 9:07 pm UTC
Saying that a studio shouldn't use GenAI at all feels a bit to me like saying I won't buy furniture if the carpenter used a power saw
I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if it's the very artists people are trying to protect, who wants to use GenAI for the same reason... Is does donkey work faster.
Imagine you're creating the new assets for a game and you want to trial some ideas. GenAI allows you to give it what you have and direct some tweaks, and the easily visualise that in multiple in-game contexts. And yes, the bottom line is that takes some work away from artists by making each artist able to work quicker, but so did power tools for the trades.
I also think a lot of people seem to view GenAI as "give it a sentence and it will draw whatever you need" but if you've ever actually used it to make something where you have a specific vision, you know how much of the artistic direction still comes from you. Again, the power saw does not make the table, but it sure makes it easier
I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if it's the very artists people are trying to protect, who wants to use GenAI for the same reason... Is does donkey work faster.
Imagine you're creating the new assets for a game and you want to trial some ideas. GenAI allows you to give it what you have and direct some tweaks, and the easily visualise that in multiple in-game contexts. And yes, the bottom line is that takes some work away from artists by making each artist able to work quicker, but so did power tools for the trades.
I also think a lot of people seem to view GenAI as "give it a sentence and it will draw whatever you need" but if you've ever actually used it to make something where you have a specific vision, you know how much of the artistic direction still comes from you. Again, the power saw does not make the table, but it sure makes it easier
News - Thief: The Dark Project Remastered announced by Atari / Nightdive Studios
By tpau, 8 Jun 2026 at 7:16 pm UTC
Otherwise it feels odd.
By tpau, 8 Jun 2026 at 7:16 pm UTC
Quoting: PaldinoXAs is typical with these kinds of remasters, I think the ultra HD textures and modern lighting on top of the low-poly environments make the game look significantly WORSE than the original.Yea i think if a game is too old, it needs to be done again from the ground up with a lot more polygons and fresh animations.
Otherwise it feels odd.
News - Thief: The Dark Project Remastered announced by Atari / Nightdive Studios
By neolith, 9 Jun 2026 at 9:10 am UTC
I think you can in almost all cases absolutely remaster an old game, put modern features and visuals into it and still keep the spirit and the look of the original. Take a look at the Quake1 remaster: QOL features, high resolutions, widescreen, 120fps, dynamic lighting, ambient occlusion, depth of field, colored lighting, updated effects and enemies and weapons with more polygons – yet it still looks and plays exactly as you remember Q1 did back in the day.
It is possible to do that and do the original justice. It's just that it takes quite a bit more work than updating the engine and upscaling/repainting textures.
By neolith, 9 Jun 2026 at 9:10 am UTC
Quoting: tpauI get what you are saying, but I disagree.Quoting: PaldinoXAs is typical with these kinds of remasters, I think the ultra HD textures and modern lighting on top of the low-poly environments make the game look significantly WORSE than the original.Yea i think if a game is too old, it needs to be done again from the ground up with a lot more polygons and fresh animations.
Otherwise it feels odd.
I think you can in almost all cases absolutely remaster an old game, put modern features and visuals into it and still keep the spirit and the look of the original. Take a look at the Quake1 remaster: QOL features, high resolutions, widescreen, 120fps, dynamic lighting, ambient occlusion, depth of field, colored lighting, updated effects and enemies and weapons with more polygons – yet it still looks and plays exactly as you remember Q1 did back in the day.
It is possible to do that and do the original justice. It's just that it takes quite a bit more work than updating the engine and upscaling/repainting textures.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By spymastermatt, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:30 am UTC
I was trying to separate PurpleLibraryGuy's suggestion of
And yes, a lot of the reactions to every announcement of AI use in any form feel to me like
"100% AI = bad, therefore 1% AI = bad"
By spymastermatt, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:30 am UTC
Quoting: tuubiIgnoring any and all other concerns: As long as they don't then imagine that they've actually written a story, and try to claim copyright to the result, I guess it would be fine? I'm sure it feels rewarding for them to get that story out. They haven't become an author, more like an amateur editor, but still, good for them.I guess this is where we differ. For me an author is the person that came up with the idea for the story, plot, characters, arcs, scenes, and development. So if the person (A) is doing all of that and describing them in the best detail they can to someone (B) who writes the actual words (be they computer or human) then in my mind A is still the author.
Quoting: tuubiI think the situation would be different if they'd actually written the whole story to the best of their ability, and used these tools to give them suggestions on how to make it better. A lot more effort, but there's a reason even established authors work for months, sometimes years, to write a novel, even with getting help and feedback from professional editors and readers. Most of us haven't got the talent or the patience for that, but that doesn't make it okay to just outsource the bulk of the effort.That's a fair point and I guess then it comes down to how much of each. My friend (who is not actually considering using AI at this moment I should point out) has written several scenes of the book himself. If he uses an AI to help fill in the gaps between the scenes, is there a moment for you when it becomes not his work, or is it simply if he uses the AI at all? Genuinely interested in your opinion here, I appreciate from your later comment that my tone has not reflected that.
Quoting: spymastermattI guess my analogy in this case would be is the songwriter who writes clever lyrics, less of a songwriter because they can't sing it themselves? Should we scorn them for using a singer instead of just singing it themselves like a real artist
Quoting: tuubiThe analogy doesn't work. Why wouldn't they be called a songwriter after writing a song? They'll get their share of the royalties. They just can't be called a singer. Just like your friend isn't an author after prompting and editing a book.I guess then the problem for me is that we don't yet have a view or word to separate the ideasmith from the author in the way we do the songwriter and singer.
Quoting: spymastermattAgain, we've taken the idea that AI can make a book given a one sentence prompt and blanket swept that that must therefore be the only way people use it
Quoting: tuubiNo, what you've done is ascribe a lack of understanding to people with valid criticisms of the technology and how it is being used in the real world. Sure, some people react with their gut, but critics do include a lot of people who are actually in the know, but crucially not invested.I apologise that this is how I have come across, I was intending to question what feels like gut reactions but I appreciate that has come across as assuming people don't understand.
I was trying to separate PurpleLibraryGuy's suggestion of
Quoting: Purple Library Guyif someone tells a large language model "Write me a book about this" and thinks it's theirs because they had an idea (which apparently does happen) . . . that's incredibly stupid.from the idea of people using AI to fill in gaps rather than write the whole story. From my perspective there's a big range between Wrote the book entirely myself -> Had the AI spell and grammer check -> Had the AI fix up some scenes to make them read better -> ... all the way through to "Told the AI to write a sci-fi book about an alien who lives on earth" (which I 100% agree removes any creative direction from the human)
And yes, a lot of the reactions to every announcement of AI use in any form feel to me like
"100% AI = bad, therefore 1% AI = bad"
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By pb, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:20 am UTC
By pb, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:20 am UTC
Quoting: SlaxerAs an artist by trade, I'm not worried about AI replacing artists. That's not the problem.Yeah, the AI is incapable of replacing artists, but it's capable of chewing up all the artists' works and spitting out something more or less acceptable by an executive. So yeah, it won't replace artists but it will be used (by CEOs) as a replacement for a junior illustrator, who with some work, persistence and money (to support day-to-day living) might have grown to be an artist, something that will now be a bit harder...
News - Twisted mystery point and click adventure Creepy Tale: Snow Child released for Linux
By Eike, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:15 am UTC
By Eike, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:15 am UTC
Thanks for pointing out, I missed that one!
News - EXODUS looks like a good fit for Mass Effect fans wanting something more
By hanx42, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:08 am UTC
By hanx42, 9 Jun 2026 at 8:08 am UTC
If i had just watched the Trailer, i would have guessed it's a DLC for Mass Effect Andromeda. The graphic style, the setting, the followers, combat etc... it just has 99% ME vibes.
Could be a good game, would be nice you could choose a female protagonist though.
Could be a good game, would be nice you could choose a female protagonist though.
News - Company of Heroes - Definitive Edition revealed to release Fall 2026
By neolith, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:48 am UTC
As much as I've loved playing CoH, I've also got to say that I have grown quite tired of remakes. Not only do long for some new experiences every once in a while, but I also think that many of them are just nostalgia bait. And sadly not all remakes are technically good IMO – for every C&C or AoE2 there seem to be a dozen that are just a bit worse than the original with a community patch.
By neolith, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:48 am UTC
We're truly in the era of safe bets with sequels and remakesYeah, we do...
As much as I've loved playing CoH, I've also got to say that I have grown quite tired of remakes. Not only do long for some new experiences every once in a while, but I also think that many of them are just nostalgia bait. And sadly not all remakes are technically good IMO – for every C&C or AoE2 there seem to be a dozen that are just a bit worse than the original with a community patch.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By tuubi, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:47 am UTC
I think the situation would be different if they'd actually written the whole story to the best of their ability, and used these tools to give them suggestions on how to make it better. A lot more effort, but there's a reason even established authors work for months, sometimes years, to write a novel, even with getting help and feedback from professional editors and readers. Most of us haven't got the talent or the patience for that, but that doesn't make it okay to just outsource the bulk of the effort.
I know this is not the first time we've sacrificed something important, like the environment, for profit and/or convenience. But it sucks every time.
By tuubi, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:47 am UTC
Quoting: spymastermattIgnoring any and all other concerns: As long as they don't then imagine that they've actually written a story, and try to claim copyright to the result, I guess it would be fine? I'm sure it feels rewarding for them to get that story out. They haven't become an author, more like an amateur editor, but still, good for them.Quoting: Purple Library Guyif someone tells a large language model "Write me a book about this" and thinks it's theirs because they had an idea (which apparently does happen) . . . that's incredibly stupid.Absolutely agree, 100%!
But if someone develops an entire story, with a good plot and character development and twists and turns and they get the AI to actually put it into words because they just can't, and then they enrich it by reading it back and tweaking and adding and refining to make it the story they had in their head but could never express because of their ADHD, is their story less good because they couldn't write each individual word?
This, as you might have guessed, is a real story about a friend of mine who has fantastic ideas for stories, and describes great scenes from this particular book they would love to write, but can't. AI might give them the chance to do so. And yes you're absolutely right, the story has changed and refined and got better each time they've come to me over the years and said "I've changed this bit and added this bit between those scenes and tweaked this characters backstory a bit". But they're still doing that despite not writing a complete book, just snippets.
I think the situation would be different if they'd actually written the whole story to the best of their ability, and used these tools to give them suggestions on how to make it better. A lot more effort, but there's a reason even established authors work for months, sometimes years, to write a novel, even with getting help and feedback from professional editors and readers. Most of us haven't got the talent or the patience for that, but that doesn't make it okay to just outsource the bulk of the effort.
Quoting: spymastermattI guess my analogy in this case would be is the songwriter who writes clever lyrics, less of a songwriter because they can't sing it themselves? Should we scorn them for using a singer instead of just singing it themselves like a real artistThe analogy doesn't work. Why wouldn't they be called a songwriter after writing a song? They'll get their share of the royalties. They just can't be called a singer. Just like your friend isn't an author after prompting and editing a book.
Quoting: spymastermattAgain, we've taken the idea that AI can make a book given a one sentence prompt and blanket swept that that must therefore be the only way people use itNo, what you've done is ascribe a lack of understanding to people with valid criticisms of the technology and how it is being used in the real world. Sure, some people react with their gut, but critics do include a lot of people who are actually in the know, but crucially not invested.
I know this is not the first time we've sacrificed something important, like the environment, for profit and/or convenience. But it sucks every time.
News - Valheim 1.0 arrives in September with the Deep North biome
By Chrisznix, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:44 am UTC
Best advice though: go in with one to three friends. Its so much more fun to struggle, and helping comrades to get their gear back has led to the most hilarious scenes in my entire gaming life.
I hope to get my gang back for the 1.0.
By Chrisznix, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:44 am UTC
Quoting: NezchanI'll probably never be good enough to see most of the biomes, if we're being honest, but real cool they're finally completing all the lands.Been there, but you can do a lot about it! I really suck at Soulskike games, but in valheim you first and foremost have to find your own rythm. Most of the time the answer is good preparation and not to panic. In combat, i tended to run far too much, which drained stamina and kept me dying. Another thing to do if you struggle: drop down the death penalty to casual or so. The skill drain is too exhausting for many people before they managed to make good use of the no-skill-drain timer, and even then it is helpful. As for the ashlands... yeah, PTSD-Country.
Best advice though: go in with one to three friends. Its so much more fun to struggle, and helping comrades to get their gear back has led to the most hilarious scenes in my entire gaming life.
I hope to get my gang back for the 1.0.
News - EXODUS looks like a good fit for Mass Effect fans wanting something more
By Supay, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:35 am UTC
By Supay, 9 Jun 2026 at 7:35 am UTC
You may want to add that it is also a book series by Peter Hamilton. It's called EXODUS as well, with the first book being named The Archimedes Engine.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By Phlebiac, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:34 am UTC
By Phlebiac, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:34 am UTC
I get the idea when the tires have "flames", but what's with the green glow?
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By spymastermatt, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:28 am UTC
But if someone develops an entire story, with a good plot and character development and twists and turns and they get the AI to actually put it into words because they just can't, and then they enrich it by reading it back and tweaking and adding and refining to make it the story they had in their head but could never express because of their ADHD, is their story less good because they couldn't write each individual word?
This, as you might have guessed, is a real story about a friend of mine who has fantastic ideas for stories, and describes great scenes from this particular book they would love to write, but can't. AI might give them the chance to do so. And yes you're absolutely right, the story has changed and refined and got better each time they've come to me over the years and said "I've changed this bit and added this bit between those scenes and tweaked this characters backstory a bit". But they're still doing that despite not writing a complete book, just snippets.
I guess my analogy in this case would be is the songwriter who writes clever lyrics, less of a songwriter because they can't sing it themselves? Should we scorn them for using a singer instead of just singing it themselves like a real artist
Again, we've taken the idea that AI can make a book given a one sentence prompt and blanket swept that that must therefore be the only way people use it
By spymastermatt, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:28 am UTC
Quoting: Purple Library Guyif someone tells a large language model "Write me a book about this" and thinks it's theirs because they had an idea (which apparently does happen) . . . that's incredibly stupid.Absolutely agree, 100%!
But if someone develops an entire story, with a good plot and character development and twists and turns and they get the AI to actually put it into words because they just can't, and then they enrich it by reading it back and tweaking and adding and refining to make it the story they had in their head but could never express because of their ADHD, is their story less good because they couldn't write each individual word?
This, as you might have guessed, is a real story about a friend of mine who has fantastic ideas for stories, and describes great scenes from this particular book they would love to write, but can't. AI might give them the chance to do so. And yes you're absolutely right, the story has changed and refined and got better each time they've come to me over the years and said "I've changed this bit and added this bit between those scenes and tweaked this characters backstory a bit". But they're still doing that despite not writing a complete book, just snippets.
I guess my analogy in this case would be is the songwriter who writes clever lyrics, less of a songwriter because they can't sing it themselves? Should we scorn them for using a singer instead of just singing it themselves like a real artist
Again, we've taken the idea that AI can make a book given a one sentence prompt and blanket swept that that must therefore be the only way people use it
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By spymastermatt, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:14 am UTC
Yes there is awe in the ability to do something prior to the machines - the pyramids are impressive not because we couldn't possibly make them today, but because they were made without modern machinery - but that doesn't mean I would consider building a large scale building without the use of cranes today anything other than insane.
For me what makes good art is either the above, or mostly the choice of subject and detail.
For me the Mona Lisa is not a good painting because it took a long time and was difficult to paint, but because the choice of expression is so enigmatic and not really seen in other paintings.
I saw a fantastic sculpture in Birmingham UK made out of knives from an amnesty. It must have taken hours to put together, but that's not what made it impressive. It was good art (to me) because of what it represented.
By spymastermatt, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:14 am UTC
Quoting: SlaxerSo to draw the analogy again, is the bespoke table made by a carpentry workshop less valuable because they used a CNC to cut the top and bore the fixing holes? Did they put less creative design into it because they used the machine?Quoting: scaineAh, the "it's just a tool" argument. I'm not a fan of this.Me neither, I hate it. It's the start of something that has largely only existed in science-fiction, and something that has never existed before in human history - but it's just a tool, they say. Yes, I'm aware that in its current state it's technically still not anything close to what the term "artificial intelligence" implies, but still. I feel like I'm being gaslit whenever someone says it.
Quoting: spymastermattIn particular your point about how you would make a bad table because you lack the skills, demonstrates for me exactly what I'm talking about. Here we have an actual game studio, who's professionals are using it as a tool and we are slating it because we assume suddenly that they've fired all the professionals and had people with no creative skill use the tool.As an artist by trade, I'm not worried about AI replacing artists. That's not the problem. I just believe that the painstaking monotony of sculpting every scale on a dragon, or modeling the treads of a tire by hand, or having the discipline involved in painting something like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel over years is what makes art beautiful. There is always an element of pain in any form of creation, and it's the secret ingredient to good art. Hypothetically, if you knew that every piece of Renaissance art in Italy was actually just made by a machine, do you think it'd be worth flying over to Italy to see? They'd completely lose their significance. AI isn't going to enable artists to be more creative by liberating them from hard work. At the very least, its use by artists is eventually going to make artists lazier and less skilled at their craft. At most, it's going to make art pointless.
Yes there is awe in the ability to do something prior to the machines - the pyramids are impressive not because we couldn't possibly make them today, but because they were made without modern machinery - but that doesn't mean I would consider building a large scale building without the use of cranes today anything other than insane.
For me what makes good art is either the above, or mostly the choice of subject and detail.
For me the Mona Lisa is not a good painting because it took a long time and was difficult to paint, but because the choice of expression is so enigmatic and not really seen in other paintings.
I saw a fantastic sculpture in Birmingham UK made out of knives from an amnesty. It must have taken hours to put together, but that's not what made it impressive. It was good art (to me) because of what it represented.
News - KDE Plasma waves goodbye to X11 for Plasma 6.8
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:12 am UTC
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:12 am UTC
I don't know if my problem is related to X11 vs Wayland, but when I used Mint as my first distro it was fine on my PC. Then I got a laptop and everything looked tiny, I tried to use fractional scaling and found it was busted on Mint so I had to use font scaling, but that just looked ugly, and some programs would not respect neither fractional scaling, nor font scaling and I was so annoyed and I found out if I use KDE and maybe Wayland, this problem will be gone, so I switched to Tuxedo OS and now my problem is gone. The only issue I have now on Wayland is I was used all my life to switch keyboard layouts with SHIFT+ALT, but on Wayland for some reason only ALT+SHIFT works.
Overall, I don't mind that DEs are dropping X11, I'm still new to Linux, but I've had more issues with X11 than Wayland so I'm not sad to see it go. From what I've read both have some good and bad sides, X11 is too old and convoluted and fragmented and it can never have some of the features that Wayland has, Wayland also doesn't have some features and stability that X11 has, but in the long run Wayland can reach feature parity with X11 and even surpass it. I don't care about the war between both, I just want to be practical and to use what works for me.
Overall, I don't mind that DEs are dropping X11, I'm still new to Linux, but I've had more issues with X11 than Wayland so I'm not sad to see it go. From what I've read both have some good and bad sides, X11 is too old and convoluted and fragmented and it can never have some of the features that Wayland has, Wayland also doesn't have some features and stability that X11 has, but in the long run Wayland can reach feature parity with X11 and even surpass it. I don't care about the war between both, I just want to be practical and to use what works for me.
News - Bloober Team revealed action-adventure horror Star Trek: Shadow Frontier
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:05 am UTC
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:05 am UTC
Star Trek isn't something I associate with horror. Same with Star Wars, but I guess everything is possible.
News - Defender of the Crown: The Legend Returns arrives in August
By Phlebiac, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:05 am UTC
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3220180/Vestigia_Joust/
By Phlebiac, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:05 am UTC
Quoting: iiariThere is absolutely a place for a modern, truly outstanding jousting mini-game.Screenshots are pretty, reviews are decent. I know nothing about it, though:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3220180/Vestigia_Joust/
News - Thief: The Dark Project Remastered announced by Atari / Nightdive Studios
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:03 am UTC
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:03 am UTC
Quoting: tpauIt's better to have a modern remaster for some of those games. Other such examples are OpenMW, fheroes2, VCMI and some other stuff like that which improve performance and compatibility with modern hardware.Quoting: PaldinoXAs is typical with these kinds of remasters, I think the ultra HD textures and modern lighting on top of the low-poly environments make the game look significantly WORSE than the original.Yea i think if a game is too old, it needs to be done again from the ground up with a lot more polygons and fresh animations.
Otherwise it feels odd.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By Purple Library Guy, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:02 am UTC
None of that is going to happen if you're just getting AI to fill up the word count.
By Purple Library Guy, 9 Jun 2026 at 6:02 am UTC
Quoting: SlaxerI can't do art to save my life. But I do a bit of writing, and I will say that if someone tells a large language model "Write me a book about this" and thinks it's theirs because they had an idea (which apparently does happen) . . . that's incredibly stupid. Most of the ideas in a book are created in the process of writing it; you might start with a basic framework, but it's while you're knocking out paragraph after paragraph that you make it rich, developing the ideas you had, coming up with new ones in the flow of making. You'll think "OK, gonna write a few pages about this" and a couple of pages in you realize there's this other stuff that can connect in. You realize who a character is as you write dialogue and it comes out a particular way. I wouldn't be surprised if art can be kind of like that too.Quoting: scaineAh, the "it's just a tool" argument. I'm not a fan of this.Me neither, I hate it. It's the start of something that has largely only existed in science-fiction, and something that has never existed before in human history - but it's just a tool, they say. Yes, I'm aware that in its current state it's technically still not anything close to what the term "artificial intelligence" implies, but still. I feel like I'm being gaslit whenever someone says it.
Quoting: spymastermattIn particular your point about how you would make a bad table because you lack the skills, demonstrates for me exactly what I'm talking about. Here we have an actual game studio, who's professionals are using it as a tool and we are slating it because we assume suddenly that they've fired all the professionals and had people with no creative skill use the tool.As an artist by trade, I'm not worried about AI replacing artists. That's not the problem. I just believe that the painstaking monotony of sculpting every scale on a dragon, or modeling the treads of a tire by hand, or having the discipline involved in painting something like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel over years is what makes art beautiful. There is always an element of pain in any form of creation, and it's the secret ingredient to good art. Hypothetically, if you knew that every piece of Renaissance art in Italy was actually just made by a machine, do you think it'd be worth flying over to Italy to see? They'd completely lose their significance. AI isn't going to enable artists to be more creative by liberating them from hard work. At the very least, its use by artists is eventually going to make artists lazier and less skilled at their craft. At most, it's going to make art pointless.
None of that is going to happen if you're just getting AI to fill up the word count.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 5:50 am UTC
By Allwynd, 9 Jun 2026 at 5:50 am UTC
I don't mind the AI part this much, I also don't like AI very much, but also use it sometimes and at the same time I don't care about it.
The problem I see with this game is the visuals look off-putting in the sense that your taxi is the same old, funky style and all the rest of the cars are modern day so it looks out of place. The older cars from the previous Crazy Taxi games made the world look and feel way more appealing.
Another thing that I noticed in the trailer is when they show in the rear view mirror the passenger making faces, it looked like some Disney Pixar animation and it looks to me like uncanny valley. The same facial expressions and body movements that are currently employed in Blizzard games like World of Warcraft and Overwatch that I really dislike.
If they just took something like Crazy Taxi 3 and remade the graphics in the same slightly cartoony style with vibrant colors and not too detailed like this is supposed to be it would be better. But currently nothing about this game makes me the least bit excited to look forward to playing it. Even if there was no AI, the game in a few words look like p**p.
The problem I see with this game is the visuals look off-putting in the sense that your taxi is the same old, funky style and all the rest of the cars are modern day so it looks out of place. The older cars from the previous Crazy Taxi games made the world look and feel way more appealing.
Another thing that I noticed in the trailer is when they show in the rear view mirror the passenger making faces, it looked like some Disney Pixar animation and it looks to me like uncanny valley. The same facial expressions and body movements that are currently employed in Blizzard games like World of Warcraft and Overwatch that I really dislike.
If they just took something like Crazy Taxi 3 and remade the graphics in the same slightly cartoony style with vibrant colors and not too detailed like this is supposed to be it would be better. But currently nothing about this game makes me the least bit excited to look forward to playing it. Even if there was no AI, the game in a few words look like p**p.
News - Defender of the Crown: The Legend Returns arrives in August
By iiari, 9 Jun 2026 at 3:54 am UTC
By iiari, 9 Jun 2026 at 3:54 am UTC
Quoting: ChrisznixI still can playback those Amiga mod tracks from Defender in my head, and i remenmber to win the game with Wolfric the Wild by jousting only. Good times!There is absolutely a place for a modern, truly outstanding jousting mini-game.
News - Valheim 1.0 arrives in September with the Deep North biome
By Nezchan, 9 Jun 2026 at 2:17 am UTC
By Nezchan, 9 Jun 2026 at 2:17 am UTC
I'll probably never be good enough to see most of the biomes, if we're being honest, but real cool they're finally completing all the lands.
My hope is there'll be a round of overhauling parts of the game they haven't touched in a while, with the experience gained from doing all the later game stuff. Polish things up, maybe throw a few scraps to folks like me not good enough to get to the mid/late game, and so forth.
My hope is there'll be a round of overhauling parts of the game they haven't touched in a while, with the experience gained from doing all the later game stuff. Polish things up, maybe throw a few scraps to folks like me not good enough to get to the mid/late game, and so forth.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By Slaxer, 9 Jun 2026 at 1:42 am UTC
By Slaxer, 9 Jun 2026 at 1:42 am UTC
Quoting: scaineAh, the "it's just a tool" argument. I'm not a fan of this.Me neither, I hate it. It's the start of something that has largely only existed in science-fiction, and something that has never existed before in human history - but it's just a tool, they say. Yes, I'm aware that in its current state it's technically still not anything close to what the term "artificial intelligence" implies, but still. I feel like I'm being gaslit whenever someone says it.
Quoting: spymastermattIn particular your point about how you would make a bad table because you lack the skills, demonstrates for me exactly what I'm talking about. Here we have an actual game studio, who's professionals are using it as a tool and we are slating it because we assume suddenly that they've fired all the professionals and had people with no creative skill use the tool.As an artist by trade, I'm not worried about AI replacing artists. That's not the problem. I just believe that the painstaking monotony of sculpting every scale on a dragon, or modeling the treads of a tire by hand, or having the discipline involved in painting something like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel over years is what makes art beautiful. There is always an element of pain in any form of creation, and it's the secret ingredient to good art. Hypothetically, if you knew that every piece of Renaissance art in Italy was actually just made by a machine, do you think it'd be worth flying over to Italy to see? They'd completely lose their significance. AI isn't going to enable artists to be more creative by liberating them from hard work. At the very least, its use by artists is eventually going to make artists lazier and less skilled at their craft. At most, it's going to make art pointless.
News - KDE Plasma waves goodbye to X11 for Plasma 6.8
By dmoonfire, 9 Jun 2026 at 1:22 am UTC
By dmoonfire, 9 Jun 2026 at 1:22 am UTC
Quoting: Nic264I have yet to get that to work and I disconnect my laptop from the dock but leave it running every day. Now, I'm a bit behind on NixOS 25.11 because I can't get updated to 26.05, but having the panel move doesn't work now.Quoting: dmoonfireWhile I'm sad because KDE Wayland doesn't handle saving the layout based on monitors (I want secondary only while plugged into the doc but the docked bar doesn't move with Wayland)Is your concern still valid? I run Wayland and:
- When my laptop is unplugged my panel is on my internal screen.
- When it's plugged to my 2 external screens at my desk I get all 3 screens but only the external screens have panels.
- When I plug into my TV my internal screen turns off and my TV screen has my panel.
I don't remember exactly how I set it up, but I don't think I had to do anything special to get this behavior.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By spymastermatt, 8 Jun 2026 at 11:37 pm UTC
Mostly the conflation of the use and the technology. It seems to me a lot of the flack for the use of GenAI comes from the way it's been used, spilling over into the use itself. Yes people are generating slop, yes people are using it to produce 'features' their users weren't asking for, but to say that makes the technology bad in any use case is overgeneralising and punishing people who use it creatively because there are people who don't.
In particular your point about how you would make a bad table because you lack the skills, demonstrates for me exactly what I'm talking about. Here we have an actual game studio, who's professionals are using it as a tool and we are slating it because we assume suddenly that they've fired all the professionals and had people with no creative skill use the tool.
And as @mindedie pointed out earlier, badly made games were a thing long before AI
From my perspective it also enables the opposite, people with good ideas for games, but without the skills / time / money to make art for it can now make their game.
The other thing that attracts a lot of scorn is people using it to create art "instead of employing an artist" but often times that's a false dichotomy. The choice is not AI art or human art, it's AI art or no art. The art in this context is simply not worth enough to warrant the cost of a human artist.
As for the illegally stolen reference material the AI uses, it's a tricky one for me personally because I don't pirate and I do believe that if you work to produce something you should get paid for it (provided there's a market of course). But I'm not entirely sure that the way AI has looked at art and uses it to generate more is all that different from the popularity of anime-style games. Humans tend to form their own style based on the things they've seen and they didn't necessarily buy all the artwork they've seen before letting it influence their style.
This is particularly relevant for this particular case, where the art the AI is replicating is likely their own material anyway. And it wildly depends on whether you have huge creative input and generate your own style, or have the machine copy someone else's, but copy-cat style art has existed forever and we used to call it "movements" rather than slate every artist as illegally copying their compatriots.
Regarding the electricity usage, people often seem to compare usage of AI against no usage. Taking the usage from this [article](https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/2506.17016v1) we see a usage of 1 Wh per image. If you assume that image would be generated by an artist using a modest setup, they're using 150 watts, so they would need to make the image in 24 seconds to be more energy efficient.
Water is a trickier one, and it seems insane to me that the evaporative cooling techniques that are used are not capturing the evaporated water once it has shed it's heat but:
According to [this paper](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688cb407dc6688ed50878367/Water_use_in_data_centre_and_AI_report.pdf) from the UK government we get some interesting figures:
The same article puts the current UK public water system alone at 14 billion litres per day (it's unclear whether this includes existing data centres) - Side note, they misquote it as 14,000 billion but if you follow the references it eventually leads [here](https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-10248/CBP-10248.pdf) which clarifies
So yes the usage is significant and there are multiplying factors (data centres need more water when it's hot.... so do people) but I don't think it's beyond the ken of man to solve this
Perhaps the best thing we could do would be to either put a limit on people using it (particularly for frivolous things) or ensure that the companies making (cough) money from this are paying towards the solutions, thus forcing price rises, thus limiting usage etc etc
And who knows, maybe the only reason we're even getting another crazy taxi is because GenAI drops the cost to a point where it's worth taking the risk, rather than replicating the multiplayer, microtransaction, minor-change-to-a-franchise, format that guarantees to make it's money back, i.e. HumanSlop
By spymastermatt, 8 Jun 2026 at 11:37 pm UTC
Quoting: scaineAh, the "it's just a tool" argument. I'm not a fan of this.I take some of your points (and god is it good to speak to someone with a reasoned discourse) but there's a few things I disagree with
Mostly the conflation of the use and the technology. It seems to me a lot of the flack for the use of GenAI comes from the way it's been used, spilling over into the use itself. Yes people are generating slop, yes people are using it to produce 'features' their users weren't asking for, but to say that makes the technology bad in any use case is overgeneralising and punishing people who use it creatively because there are people who don't.
In particular your point about how you would make a bad table because you lack the skills, demonstrates for me exactly what I'm talking about. Here we have an actual game studio, who's professionals are using it as a tool and we are slating it because we assume suddenly that they've fired all the professionals and had people with no creative skill use the tool.
And as @mindedie pointed out earlier, badly made games were a thing long before AI
From my perspective it also enables the opposite, people with good ideas for games, but without the skills / time / money to make art for it can now make their game.
The other thing that attracts a lot of scorn is people using it to create art "instead of employing an artist" but often times that's a false dichotomy. The choice is not AI art or human art, it's AI art or no art. The art in this context is simply not worth enough to warrant the cost of a human artist.
As for the illegally stolen reference material the AI uses, it's a tricky one for me personally because I don't pirate and I do believe that if you work to produce something you should get paid for it (provided there's a market of course). But I'm not entirely sure that the way AI has looked at art and uses it to generate more is all that different from the popularity of anime-style games. Humans tend to form their own style based on the things they've seen and they didn't necessarily buy all the artwork they've seen before letting it influence their style.
This is particularly relevant for this particular case, where the art the AI is replicating is likely their own material anyway. And it wildly depends on whether you have huge creative input and generate your own style, or have the machine copy someone else's, but copy-cat style art has existed forever and we used to call it "movements" rather than slate every artist as illegally copying their compatriots.
Regarding the electricity usage, people often seem to compare usage of AI against no usage. Taking the usage from this [article](https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/2506.17016v1) we see a usage of 1 Wh per image. If you assume that image would be generated by an artist using a modest setup, they're using 150 watts, so they would need to make the image in 24 seconds to be more energy efficient.
Water is a trickier one, and it seems insane to me that the evaporative cooling techniques that are used are not capturing the evaporated water once it has shed it's heat but:
According to [this paper](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688cb407dc6688ed50878367/Water_use_in_data_centre_and_AI_report.pdf) from the UK government we get some interesting figures:
Globally, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the data centre sectorSo that puts it currently at 1.53 billion litres per day
consumes over 560 billion litres of water annually. Projections indicate this figure could
rise dramatically, reaching as high as 1,200 billion litres by 2030.13
The same article puts the current UK public water system alone at 14 billion litres per day (it's unclear whether this includes existing data centres) - Side note, they misquote it as 14,000 billion but if you follow the references it eventually leads [here](https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-10248/CBP-10248.pdf) which clarifies
So yes the usage is significant and there are multiplying factors (data centres need more water when it's hot.... so do people) but I don't think it's beyond the ken of man to solve this
Perhaps the best thing we could do would be to either put a limit on people using it (particularly for frivolous things) or ensure that the companies making (cough) money from this are paying towards the solutions, thus forcing price rises, thus limiting usage etc etc
And who knows, maybe the only reason we're even getting another crazy taxi is because GenAI drops the cost to a point where it's worth taking the risk, rather than replicating the multiplayer, microtransaction, minor-change-to-a-franchise, format that guarantees to make it's money back, i.e. HumanSlop
News - Valve continue working towards the Steam Frame with a new SteamVR Beta
By charles222, 8 Jun 2026 at 11:18 pm UTC
By charles222, 8 Jun 2026 at 11:18 pm UTC
Quoting: scaineThe best thing about FPS games in VR, to me, was that you actually had to move the wands to aim. Feels really natural imo.Quoting: charles222100% this - Elite:Dangerous was an incredible upgrade on the pancake mode. Overload (a Descent-like) was superb too. As was Project Cars 2, although I'm not big on racing games, it was pretty amazing being to look around inside the cockpit as you drove.Quoting: PoliticsOfStarvingWhat kind of games do people play in VR? Is it basically just FPS?For me the best part of VR was flying games. You're sitting down so there's no worries about room space really, and being able to actually look around (especially over your shoulder for combat) rules. Driving games would probably rock too.
I never thought VR gaming would take off, but it seems people do want it. I guess when I think of VR I think of lame golf demos and lightsaber duels that my nephew showed me about 5 years ago.
In fact, with the exception of Alyx, I was a bit underwhelmed with most FPS-like games. Superhot was pretty cool, and Space Pirate Trainer, but anything that required you to do a lot of movement left me a bit cold.
Then there's all the beat-based games: Beat Saber, Groove Gunner, Pistol Whip, BoxVR, and the rest. They're great and you get a bit of a workout while you're playing too, but they require a tiny bit of space to stand up in.
I loved my stint into VR. I'm very excited to see how Frame shapes up.
News - Steam Survey for May 2026 is out - Linux down at 3.99% but still above macOS
By Slaxer, 8 Jun 2026 at 10:47 pm UTC
By Slaxer, 8 Jun 2026 at 10:47 pm UTC
I want my children's children to see Linux with a 25% desktop user share.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By scaine, 8 Jun 2026 at 10:30 pm UTC
One thing I do like about your analogy is this - if you give me, personally, a powersaw, I'll give you an absolutely shitty table because I have no idea about carpentry. And that's what we get with genAI - pure slop. It doesn't matter how much "artistic direction" you're going to fit into a prompt if you have no idea about art.
I'd prefer that creatives are given the freedom and time to not use the plagiarism machine and just create something that they're paid for and probably love doing, and we can enjoy that work without wondering how many households experienced brownouts and contaminated water to produce such shitty art.
I read a lot of fiction - mainly fantasy and sci-fi, right? I challenge you to ask anyone like me, "would you rather wait a year to read your favourite author's next book, or would you prefer to have genAI write a new book in the same style as that author, and you can read it next week?"
No-one - absolutely not a single reader - would choose genAI.
By scaine, 8 Jun 2026 at 10:30 pm UTC
Quoting: spymastermattSaying that a studio shouldn't use GenAI at all feels a bit to me like saying I won't buy furniture if the carpenter used a power sawAh, the "it's just a tool" argument. I'm not a fan of this. Powertools genuinely made very specific drudge work easier for skilled tradesmen, unlike genAI, which is more akin to robot automation taking jobs away from car factory workers. But the metaphor entirely breaks down when you realise that genAI isn't just taking jobs away, it's also spurring massive datacentre investment - which is impacting water and electricity supplies in the American (mostly) towns where they're being thrown up, while driving up prices of RAM and GPUs. It's spurring nuclear re-investment over a long term (25 years minimum). It's definitely ending jobs far faster than powertools ever could. And then there's the illegally obtained training data, the cost of training, the loss-leading pricing, the billionaire's and corpos funding all this, the top-heavy, bubble-like investment, the insane marketing, the force-fed product "enhancements" and everything else that's wrong with this car-crash tech.
I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if it's the very artists people are trying to protect, who wants to use GenAI for the same reason... Is does donkey work faster.
Imagine you're creating the new assets for a game and you want to trial some ideas. GenAI allows you to give it what you have and direct some tweaks, and the easily visualise that in multiple in-game contexts. And yes, the bottom line is that takes some work away from artists by making each artist able to work quicker, but so did power tools for the trades.
I also think a lot of people seem to view GenAI as "give it a sentence and it will draw whatever you need" but if you've ever actually used it to make something where you have a specific vision, you know how much of the artistic direction still comes from you. Again, the power saw does not make the table, but it sure makes it easier
One thing I do like about your analogy is this - if you give me, personally, a powersaw, I'll give you an absolutely shitty table because I have no idea about carpentry. And that's what we get with genAI - pure slop. It doesn't matter how much "artistic direction" you're going to fit into a prompt if you have no idea about art.
I'd prefer that creatives are given the freedom and time to not use the plagiarism machine and just create something that they're paid for and probably love doing, and we can enjoy that work without wondering how many households experienced brownouts and contaminated water to produce such shitty art.
I read a lot of fiction - mainly fantasy and sci-fi, right? I challenge you to ask anyone like me, "would you rather wait a year to read your favourite author's next book, or would you prefer to have genAI write a new book in the same style as that author, and you can read it next week?"
No-one - absolutely not a single reader - would choose genAI.
News - Valve continue working towards the Steam Frame with a new SteamVR Beta
By scaine, 8 Jun 2026 at 10:11 pm UTC
In fact, with the exception of Alyx, I was a bit underwhelmed with most FPS-like games. Superhot was pretty cool, and Space Pirate Trainer, but anything that required you to do a lot of movement left me a bit cold.
Then there's all the beat-based games: Beat Saber, Groove Gunner, Pistol Whip, BoxVR, and the rest. They're great and you get a bit of a workout while you're playing too, but they require a tiny bit of space to stand up in.
I loved my stint into VR. I'm very excited to see how Frame shapes up.
By scaine, 8 Jun 2026 at 10:11 pm UTC
Quoting: charles222100% this - Elite:Dangerous was an incredible upgrade on the pancake mode. Overload (a Descent-like) was superb too. As was Project Cars 2, although I'm not big on racing games, it was pretty amazing being to look around inside the cockpit as you drove.Quoting: PoliticsOfStarvingWhat kind of games do people play in VR? Is it basically just FPS?For me the best part of VR was flying games. You're sitting down so there's no worries about room space really, and being able to actually look around (especially over your shoulder for combat) rules. Driving games would probably rock too.
I never thought VR gaming would take off, but it seems people do want it. I guess when I think of VR I think of lame golf demos and lightsaber duels that my nephew showed me about 5 years ago.
In fact, with the exception of Alyx, I was a bit underwhelmed with most FPS-like games. Superhot was pretty cool, and Space Pirate Trainer, but anything that required you to do a lot of movement left me a bit cold.
Then there's all the beat-based games: Beat Saber, Groove Gunner, Pistol Whip, BoxVR, and the rest. They're great and you get a bit of a workout while you're playing too, but they require a tiny bit of space to stand up in.
I loved my stint into VR. I'm very excited to see how Frame shapes up.
News - Valve continue working towards the Steam Frame with a new SteamVR Beta
By charles222, 8 Jun 2026 at 9:08 pm UTC
By charles222, 8 Jun 2026 at 9:08 pm UTC
Quoting: PoliticsOfStarvingWhat kind of games do people play in VR? Is it basically just FPS?For me the best part of VR was flying games. You're sitting down so there's no worries about room space really, and being able to actually look around (especially over your shoulder for combat) rules. Driving games would probably rock too.
I never thought VR gaming would take off, but it seems people do want it. I guess when I think of VR I think of lame golf demos and lightsaber duels that my nephew showed me about 5 years ago.
News - Crazy Taxi: World Tour announced and it's using generative AI
By spymastermatt, 8 Jun 2026 at 9:07 pm UTC
By spymastermatt, 8 Jun 2026 at 9:07 pm UTC
Saying that a studio shouldn't use GenAI at all feels a bit to me like saying I won't buy furniture if the carpenter used a power saw
I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if it's the very artists people are trying to protect, who wants to use GenAI for the same reason... Is does donkey work faster.
Imagine you're creating the new assets for a game and you want to trial some ideas. GenAI allows you to give it what you have and direct some tweaks, and the easily visualise that in multiple in-game contexts. And yes, the bottom line is that takes some work away from artists by making each artist able to work quicker, but so did power tools for the trades.
I also think a lot of people seem to view GenAI as "give it a sentence and it will draw whatever you need" but if you've ever actually used it to make something where you have a specific vision, you know how much of the artistic direction still comes from you. Again, the power saw does not make the table, but it sure makes it easier
I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if it's the very artists people are trying to protect, who wants to use GenAI for the same reason... Is does donkey work faster.
Imagine you're creating the new assets for a game and you want to trial some ideas. GenAI allows you to give it what you have and direct some tweaks, and the easily visualise that in multiple in-game contexts. And yes, the bottom line is that takes some work away from artists by making each artist able to work quicker, but so did power tools for the trades.
I also think a lot of people seem to view GenAI as "give it a sentence and it will draw whatever you need" but if you've ever actually used it to make something where you have a specific vision, you know how much of the artistic direction still comes from you. Again, the power saw does not make the table, but it sure makes it easier
News - Thief: The Dark Project Remastered announced by Atari / Nightdive Studios
By tpau, 8 Jun 2026 at 7:16 pm UTC
Otherwise it feels odd.
By tpau, 8 Jun 2026 at 7:16 pm UTC
Quoting: PaldinoXAs is typical with these kinds of remasters, I think the ultra HD textures and modern lighting on top of the low-poly environments make the game look significantly WORSE than the original.Yea i think if a game is too old, it needs to be done again from the ground up with a lot more polygons and fresh animations.
Otherwise it feels odd.
Guide - Anticheat check - which competitive games actually work on Linux?
By Zakaria_Shalih, 31 May 2026 at 2:44 am UTC
By Zakaria_Shalih, 31 May 2026 at 2:44 am UTC
games whose anti-cheats makes them never works in Linux(even with wine/proton) aren't ended up in my Library for whatever reason
Guide - How to give Valve feedback when Proton games have issues on Linux / SteamOS
By ProfessorKaos64, 30 May 2026 at 8:57 pm UTC
By ProfessorKaos64, 30 May 2026 at 8:57 pm UTC
Quoting: StellaIs that really worth doing though? I uploaded logs and gave really detailed information for 3 different games that have issues with Proton. The Witcher 3, Vampyr, Doom TDA. All 3 are Steam Deck Verified. In all 3 reports, i gave detailed repro steps along with proton logs, and the issue was 100% reproducible. In Vampyr, the report was specifically about a regression in Proton 8 or later on the Steam Deck. I have never heard back from Valve on any of these 3 reports. This effort feels like a waste of time now.😫This. I have a plugin called decky-proton-pulse, and as soon as I started reading this I was excited to maybe work this in some native easy way, but I remembered that so many do these seem to be ignored. Maybe they are not though, and we just don't see what goes in in Valve's world. Perhaps they ingest these etc... for trends and fixes.
Guide - Anticheat check - which competitive games actually work on Linux?
By kaisellgren, 29 May 2026 at 11:29 pm UTC
By kaisellgren, 29 May 2026 at 11:29 pm UTC
If you're completely stuck, want to use Linux for gaming but need specific gamesThe simplest option is to have Windows on another SSD and then you just boot into it for few select competitive games while using Linux for all the rest. This is what I do.
Guide - How to give Valve feedback when Proton games have issues on Linux / SteamOS
By Stella, 22 May 2026 at 10:27 am UTC
By Stella, 22 May 2026 at 10:27 am UTC
Is that really worth doing though? I uploaded logs and gave really detailed information for 3 different games that have issues with Proton. The Witcher 3, Vampyr, Doom TDA. All 3 are Steam Deck Verified. In all 3 reports, i gave detailed repro steps along with proton logs, and the issue was 100% reproducible. In Vampyr, the report was specifically about a regression in Proton 8 or later on the Steam Deck. I have never heard back from Valve on any of these 3 reports. This effort feels like a waste of time now.😫
Guide - How to give Valve feedback when Proton games have issues on Linux / SteamOS
By Cley_Faye, 21 May 2026 at 5:32 pm UTC
By Cley_Faye, 21 May 2026 at 5:32 pm UTC
Ah, there must be a rule somewhere to state that a solution to a problem will show up when you don't need it anymore :D
I was facing an issue with a game last week, and ended up getting proton logs out this way. It was quite helpful. Ubuntu 24.04 have nvidia 595 drivers, but for some reason they didn't ship with the 32 bit builds of the various libraries. The proton logs showed that the game (a 32-bit windows executable) was just not seeing the GPU *at all* and moved to llvmpipe.
Still, a useful post; I'm sure there are issues that can't quite get fixed on our end.
I was facing an issue with a game last week, and ended up getting proton logs out this way. It was quite helpful. Ubuntu 24.04 have nvidia 595 drivers, but for some reason they didn't ship with the 32 bit builds of the various libraries. The proton logs showed that the game (a 32-bit windows executable) was just not seeing the GPU *at all* and moved to llvmpipe.
Still, a useful post; I'm sure there are issues that can't quite get fixed on our end.
Guide - How to give Valve feedback when Proton games have issues on Linux / SteamOS
By Yasri, 21 May 2026 at 2:44 pm UTC
By Yasri, 21 May 2026 at 2:44 pm UTC
You can upload the log file, first I have heard of this. I've just been chopping them up and making dozens of posts per bug report.
/this is a joke, don't do this.
/this is a joke, don't do this.
Guide - How to setup OpenMW for modern Morrowind on Linux / SteamOS and Steam Deck
By Savor592, 10 Apr 2026 at 1:32 pm UTC
By Savor592, 10 Apr 2026 at 1:32 pm UTC
I would welcome a post (or an edit) introducing https://modding-openmw.com/ and especially showing a setup that works well on Steam Deck.
Their scripts make modding really easy. But unfortunately the Total Overhaul seems to be too much for the Deck. Would be nice to see a configuration close to it which can be run on the Deck.
Their scripts make modding really easy. But unfortunately the Total Overhaul seems to be too much for the Deck. Would be nice to see a configuration close to it which can be run on the Deck.
Guide - How to get Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 online working on Linux, SteamOS, Steam Deck
By lucasgomesbz, 7 Apr 2026 at 11:44 pm UTC
By lucasgomesbz, 7 Apr 2026 at 11:44 pm UTC
Thanks so much!
Your trick work!
Your trick work!
Guide - How to install Battle.net on Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck for World of Warcraft and Starcraft
By esapolundead, 11 Feb 2026 at 11:37 pm UTC
Close Lutris, then
Open Lutris, start Battle.net. You will have to login again, but it should be working now. Hope this helps.
By esapolundead, 11 Feb 2026 at 11:37 pm UTC
Quoting: iliyalesanitried wine, wine-staging-tkg, proton experimental, proton-ge, proton-tkg, reinstalled battle.net multiple times on different prefixes even cleared appdata and programdata but still nothing. gave VPN and tethering mobile network a shot as well. the result was always the same:This happened to me as well. Looks like the latest Battle.net launcher update broke something. This is how I fixed it in Lutris.
"Battle.net Update Agent went to sleep. Attempting to wake it up... BLZBNTBNA00000005".
Close Lutris, then
# pkill -9 Battle.net
# pkill -9 Agent
# pkill -9 Blizzard
# rm -rf ~/Games/battlenet/drive_c/ProgramData/Battle.net/Agent
# rm -rf ~/Games/battlenet/drive_c/ProgramData/Blizzard\ EntertainmentOpen Lutris, start Battle.net. You will have to login again, but it should be working now. Hope this helps.
Guide - How to install Battle.net on Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck for World of Warcraft and Starcraft
By iliyalesani, 11 Feb 2026 at 9:46 pm UTC
By iliyalesani, 11 Feb 2026 at 9:46 pm UTC
tried wine, wine-staging-tkg, proton experimental, proton-ge, proton-tkg, reinstalled battle.net multiple times on different prefixes even cleared appdata and programdata but still nothing. gave VPN and tethering mobile network a shot as well. the result was always the same:
"Battle.net Update Agent went to sleep. Attempting to wake it up... BLZBNTBNA00000005".
same thing with lutris using different versions of wine runners. even tried starting up the agent before and after launching battle.net to no avail:
EDIT / FIX:
using bottles (AUR, not flatpak) with proton-ge 10-30 worked. bottles also applied this launch option:
"Battle.net Update Agent went to sleep. Attempting to wake it up... BLZBNTBNA00000005".
same thing with lutris using different versions of wine runners. even tried starting up the agent before and after launching battle.net to no avail:
WINEFSYNC=1 WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/2240255771/pfx/" "$HOME/.steam/steam/compatibilitytools.d/Proton-Tkg-2634/files/bin/wine" "$HOME/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/2240255771/pfx/drive_c/ProgramData/Battle.net/Agent/Agent.exe"EDIT / FIX:
using bottles (AUR, not flatpak) with proton-ge 10-30 worked. bottles also applied this launch option:
WINEDLLOVERRIDES="locationapi=d" WINE_SIMULATE_WRITECOPY=1 %command%
Guide - How to install Battle.net on Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck for World of Warcraft and Starcraft
By mr-victory, 23 Jan 2026 at 4:01 pm UTC
By mr-victory, 23 Jan 2026 at 4:01 pm UTC
Proton will also do however the default wine is ancient and does not work. I had to give this info in universal blue discord so many times I started to meme about "days since last Battle.net install failure on Lutris: 0". It is a pet peeve of mine😅
Guide - How to install Battle.net on Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck for World of Warcraft and Starcraft
By tuubi, 23 Jan 2026 at 2:55 pm UTC
Lutris really needs to cut a new release at some point and make this the default.
By tuubi, 23 Jan 2026 at 2:55 pm UTC
Quoting: mr-victoryI forgot this guide existed lol. Option 1 (Lutris) does not work and hasn't for months unless the default Wine version is changed from Wine GE 8.26 to something newer. Other wine versions can be installed by clicking a tiny button that looks like an open box in the main page of Lutris, next to "Wine" button.For most games you'll want to select "GE-Proton (Latest)" instead. No need to download anything manually. Lutris (UMU) will automatically download and manage the latest Proton version for you.
Lutris really needs to cut a new release at some point and make this the default.
Guide - How to install Battle.net on Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck for World of Warcraft and Starcraft
By mr-victory, 23 Jan 2026 at 12:44 pm UTC
By mr-victory, 23 Jan 2026 at 12:44 pm UTC
I forgot this guide existed lol. Option 1 (Lutris) does not work and hasn't for months unless the default Wine version is changed from Wine GE 8.26 to something newer. Other wine versions can be installed by clicking a tiny button that looks like an open box in the main page of Lutris, next to "Wine" button.
Guide - How to install Battle.net on Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck for World of Warcraft and Starcraft
By dbarreda, 23 Jan 2026 at 4:54 am UTC
By dbarreda, 23 Jan 2026 at 4:54 am UTC
I did install Steam thru Flatpak (K)ubuntu 25.10;
Proton 9 did not work, but Proton 10 did. It got stuck on "agent went to sleep attempting to wake it up steam".
The location for the directory is here: `~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/`
Hope this helps someone.
Proton 9 did not work, but Proton 10 did. It got stuck on "agent went to sleep attempting to wake it up steam".
The location for the directory is here: `~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/`
Hope this helps someone.
Guide - How to install Battle.net on Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck for World of Warcraft and Starcraft
By Liam Squires-Hand, 14 Jan 2026 at 12:57 pm UTC
By Liam Squires-Hand, 14 Jan 2026 at 12:57 pm UTC
I've added the Steam Snap path into the guide now, thanks.
Guide - How to install Battle.net on Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck for World of Warcraft and Starcraft
By jurquizo, 14 Jan 2026 at 12:55 pm UTC
*mod snip: we prefer note to have user scripts here, especially from an AI*
By jurquizo, 14 Jan 2026 at 12:55 pm UTC
Quoting: Liam DaweThanks for the quick reply. The folder compatdata is in ~/snap/steam/common/.local/share/Steam/steamapps, and there are a two folders with random numbers as names with the same created/modified date. In my case it was easy to find the correct because there were only 2 candidate folders.Quoting: jurquizoFirst of all, great guide. I tried following the steam method and I couldn't find the folder of the Steam installation folder to change the shortcut, I think it is because I installed Steam via snap and I can't find similar paths inside the .snap folder. Could you help me?Ah, that's an interesting one. Snap is a whole different can of worms.
Could you try looking in: ~/snap/steam/common/.local/share/Steam/steamapps
See if the compatdata folder is there? Once we find the correct path, I'll add it to the guide.
*mod snip: we prefer note to have user scripts here, especially from an AI*
Guide - How to install Battle.net on Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck for World of Warcraft and Starcraft
By Liam Squires-Hand, 13 Jan 2026 at 8:25 pm UTC
Could you try looking in: ~/snap/steam/common/.local/share/Steam/steamapps
See if the compatdata folder is there? Once we find the correct path, I'll add it to the guide.
By Liam Squires-Hand, 13 Jan 2026 at 8:25 pm UTC
Quoting: jurquizoFirst of all, great guide. I tried following the steam method and I couldn't find the folder of the Steam installation folder to change the shortcut, I think it is because I installed Steam via snap and I can't find similar paths inside the .snap folder. Could you help me?Ah, that's an interesting one. Snap is a whole different can of worms.
Could you try looking in: ~/snap/steam/common/.local/share/Steam/steamapps
See if the compatdata folder is there? Once we find the correct path, I'll add it to the guide.
Guide - How to install Battle.net on Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck for World of Warcraft and Starcraft
By jurquizo, 13 Jan 2026 at 8:17 pm UTC
By jurquizo, 13 Jan 2026 at 8:17 pm UTC
First of all, great guide. I tried following the steam method and I couldn't find the folder of the Steam installation folder to change the shortcut, I think it is because I installed Steam via snap and I can't find similar paths inside the .snap folder. Could you help me?
Guide - How to setup OpenMW for modern Morrowind on Linux / SteamOS and Steam Deck
By Caldathras, 4 Jan 2026 at 7:16 pm UTC
By Caldathras, 4 Jan 2026 at 7:16 pm UTC
This is for those looking for a solution that doesn't involve Flatpak. It is primarily intended for desktop Linux users. Although, I imagine with a little tweaking, It might work for Steam Deck as well.
Option 3) Direct Download
https://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/stable/manuals/installation/install-openmw.html#direct-download
Recently, I discovered that OpenMW offers a Direct Download "installer" on their GitHub site. This archive acts just like the Windows installer, allowing you to keep multiple versions of OpenMW installed in Linux.
The problem is that the installation instructions from the online guide are written very poorly. All they say is "run the install package once downloaded. It’s now installed!". It is not that easy. For one, the "installer" is an archive, not an executable. For two, they assume that you know what file to run once the archive is extracted. Here are my expanded instructions:
1) Download the latest Direct Download archive from the GitHub Releases page.
2) Extract the archive to the folder/location of your choice.
3) Launch the "openmw-launcher" script from within the folder.
.... a) If you are simply upgrading, it will use your existing configuration. You are good to go.
.... b) If this is a fresh installation, the launcher will offer to run the OpenMW Wizard to help you set everything up (see Option 1 of Liam's guide above for the rest of the steps).
4) If the launcher script will not start, then you have very likely encountered the rather infamous glibc issue (you can verify this by trying to launching the script in a terminal).
5) Make sure to download the latest version of the Steam Linux Runtime (currently Steam Linux Runtime 4).
6) To add OpenMW to the Steam client, choose the option "Add a Non-Steam Game ...". You may have to manually point Steam at the location of the openmw-launcher script (I did).
7) Go to the Properties menu for openmw-launcher and select "Install Compatibility Tool". Choose the latest Steam Linux Runtime, which you downloaded in Step 5.
8) Update and customize the Steam Library entry to your preferences. You should now be good to go.
Spoiler, click me
There are many ways to install OpenMW. There is even an unofficial AppImage available. The distro repositories almost always offer an out-of-date version. In the past, I used to install via the LaunchPad PPA (only works for Ubuntu derivatives). The problem with PPAs is that they have to be reinstalled with every major version upgrade of your distro. If you are slow to upgrade, the PPA will eventually update to a version of OpenMW that will not run on your outdated distro. Updating uninstalls the version that currently works and then fails on installing the new version.
Option 3) Direct Download
https://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/stable/manuals/installation/install-openmw.html#direct-download
Recently, I discovered that OpenMW offers a Direct Download "installer" on their GitHub site. This archive acts just like the Windows installer, allowing you to keep multiple versions of OpenMW installed in Linux.
Spoiler, click me
NOTE: By default, all installations share the same saves and configuration. There is a feature that was introduced with version 0.48 that allows you to set up a "portable install", which allows you to isolate a particular version with its own configuration and save files.
https://modding-openmw.com/tips/portable-install/
https://modding-openmw.com/tips/portable-install/
The problem is that the installation instructions from the online guide are written very poorly. All they say is "run the install package once downloaded. It’s now installed!". It is not that easy. For one, the "installer" is an archive, not an executable. For two, they assume that you know what file to run once the archive is extracted. Here are my expanded instructions:
1) Download the latest Direct Download archive from the GitHub Releases page.
2) Extract the archive to the folder/location of your choice.
Spoiler, click me
NOTE: If you want to maintain multiple versions, keep in mind that only one of them can be in your default PATH. In fact, it would probably be better to keep the lot of them out of your PATH altogether. Instead of treating the executable/script like a system command, you will just have to provide the entire folder address to launch the game.
This, however, also makes the installation somewhat portable since you can place folder wherever you want. Combined with the "portable install" feature described above, this means you won't even have to have the game installed in your File System partition at all.
This, however, also makes the installation somewhat portable since you can place folder wherever you want. Combined with the "portable install" feature described above, this means you won't even have to have the game installed in your File System partition at all.
3) Launch the "openmw-launcher" script from within the folder.
.... a) If you are simply upgrading, it will use your existing configuration. You are good to go.
.... b) If this is a fresh installation, the launcher will offer to run the OpenMW Wizard to help you set everything up (see Option 1 of Liam's guide above for the rest of the steps).
4) If the launcher script will not start, then you have very likely encountered the rather infamous glibc issue (you can verify this by trying to launching the script in a terminal).
Spoiler, click me
GLIBC Compatibility Issues
One of the big concerns that I have with the OpenMW project is that they don't clearly notify Linux users of a change in system requirements (which they could include with the text for each release on GitHub). The OpenMW Team occasionally increases the version of the glibc library required without clearly advising their Linux users of this change.
For example, the latest version of OpenMW (0.50.0) requires glibc 2.38. This is only available on Ubuntu 24.04 (Mint 22) or higher. (Still running an earlier distro version? Surprise!)
The solution is quite simple. You need to integrate the game into the Steam Client and set the compatibility to Steam Linux Runtime 4, which is based on Debian 13.2 Trixie (and supports glibc 2.38).
One of the big concerns that I have with the OpenMW project is that they don't clearly notify Linux users of a change in system requirements (which they could include with the text for each release on GitHub). The OpenMW Team occasionally increases the version of the glibc library required without clearly advising their Linux users of this change.
For example, the latest version of OpenMW (0.50.0) requires glibc 2.38. This is only available on Ubuntu 24.04 (Mint 22) or higher. (Still running an earlier distro version? Surprise!)
The solution is quite simple. You need to integrate the game into the Steam Client and set the compatibility to Steam Linux Runtime 4, which is based on Debian 13.2 Trixie (and supports glibc 2.38).
5) Make sure to download the latest version of the Steam Linux Runtime (currently Steam Linux Runtime 4).
6) To add OpenMW to the Steam client, choose the option "Add a Non-Steam Game ...". You may have to manually point Steam at the location of the openmw-launcher script (I did).
7) Go to the Properties menu for openmw-launcher and select "Install Compatibility Tool". Choose the latest Steam Linux Runtime, which you downloaded in Step 5.
8) Update and customize the Steam Library entry to your preferences. You should now be good to go.
Guide - How to get Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 online working on Linux, SteamOS, Steam Deck
By subzero, 19 Dec 2025 at 9:04 pm UTC
By subzero, 19 Dec 2025 at 9:04 pm UTC
Quoting: Liam Daweyes im trying to play battlefield 3, apologiesQuoting: subzeroThis doesnt seem to be working for me, i am on the official steam version of the game and i followed all the steps but for some reason the browser menu doesnt seem to detect the EA app on my computer that's already open, i am on fedora cinnamonSince the guide covers two games, which game are we talking about? Battlefield 3?
Guide - How to get Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 online working on Linux, SteamOS, Steam Deck
By Liam Squires-Hand, 19 Dec 2025 at 5:57 pm UTC
By Liam Squires-Hand, 19 Dec 2025 at 5:57 pm UTC
Quoting: subzeroThis doesnt seem to be working for me, i am on the official steam version of the game and i followed all the steps but for some reason the browser menu doesnt seem to detect the EA app on my computer that's already open, i am on fedora cinnamonSince the guide covers two games, which game are we talking about? Battlefield 3?
Guide - How to get Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 online working on Linux, SteamOS, Steam Deck
By subzero, 19 Dec 2025 at 5:47 pm UTC
By subzero, 19 Dec 2025 at 5:47 pm UTC
This doesnt seem to be working for me, i am on the official steam version of the game and i followed all the steps but for some reason the browser menu doesnt seem to detect the EA app on my computer that's already open, i am on fedora cinnamon
Guide - How to install Battle.net on Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck for World of Warcraft and Starcraft
By Mirrored, 29 Nov 2025 at 9:52 am UTC
By Mirrored, 29 Nov 2025 at 9:52 am UTC
On CachyOS:
I was not able to get the Lutris method to work. The installer kept complaining about a file system error and the Battle.net installer would freeze. I attempted this installation many times (~10) and eventually managed to install it without a file system error appearing, but even then, Battle.net would give either the "Battle.net Agent Went to Sleep" error or the "An error occurred while loading game information" error. I tried changing the Runner configuration to many other options than the default, but they all resulted in Battle.net freezing immediately after launch. I didn't try Jiloup's suggestion of using Proton Plus, though, so look at that if you insist on Lutris.
I was able to get the Steam method to work. Use Steam to run the Battle.net setup exe, and then re-target it to the launcher exe that is installed. However, the suggested Compability setting of Proton 9.0-4 still lead to the "Battle.net Agent Went to Sleep". Once I switched it to proton-cachyos-10.0-20251120, that error went away, Battle.net started normally, and I was able to install games. I then tried Proton 10.0-3, which also worked.
TL;DR: I'd recommend the Steam method, and Proton 10.0+
I was not able to get the Lutris method to work. The installer kept complaining about a file system error and the Battle.net installer would freeze. I attempted this installation many times (~10) and eventually managed to install it without a file system error appearing, but even then, Battle.net would give either the "Battle.net Agent Went to Sleep" error or the "An error occurred while loading game information" error. I tried changing the Runner configuration to many other options than the default, but they all resulted in Battle.net freezing immediately after launch. I didn't try Jiloup's suggestion of using Proton Plus, though, so look at that if you insist on Lutris.
I was able to get the Steam method to work. Use Steam to run the Battle.net setup exe, and then re-target it to the launcher exe that is installed. However, the suggested Compability setting of Proton 9.0-4 still lead to the "Battle.net Agent Went to Sleep". Once I switched it to proton-cachyos-10.0-20251120, that error went away, Battle.net started normally, and I was able to install games. I then tried Proton 10.0-3, which also worked.
TL;DR: I'd recommend the Steam method, and Proton 10.0+
Guide - How to get Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 online working on Linux, SteamOS, Steam Deck
By Turkeysteaks, 23 Nov 2025 at 5:12 pm UTC
By Turkeysteaks, 23 Nov 2025 at 5:12 pm UTC
Realise this is a bit old now, but I've been playing with BF4 for a year or so and one thing is really annoying - no steam overlay. Which also means no steam recorder.
Do you or anyone have any experience with getting the steam overlay to work with this?
Do you or anyone have any experience with getting the steam overlay to work with this?
Guide - How to install, update and see what graphics driver you have on Linux and SteamOS
By Eike, 17 Nov 2025 at 12:27 pm UTC
Installing nvidia-drivers on Debian is basically
> apt install nvidia-driver
I made I video talking way too long for the easy task of installing Steam plus Nvidia drivers on a virgin Debian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS6mXW7KPoU
By Eike, 17 Nov 2025 at 12:27 pm UTC
Added some notes for Debian.Our wiki is bad.
Installing nvidia-drivers on Debian is basically
> apt install nvidia-driver
I made I video talking way too long for the easy task of installing Steam plus Nvidia drivers on a virgin Debian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS6mXW7KPoU
Guide - How to install, update and see what graphics driver you have on Linux and SteamOS
By Liam Squires-Hand, 17 Nov 2025 at 11:58 am UTC
By Liam Squires-Hand, 17 Nov 2025 at 11:58 am UTC
Added some notes for Debian.
Guide - Why are there so many different Proton versions? Proton 8, Proton 9, Experimental, GE-Proton
By vertigo, 3 Nov 2025 at 6:40 pm UTC
By vertigo, 3 Nov 2025 at 6:40 pm UTC
Great write up, very useful for new users. It could be worth adding [proton-cachyos](https://github.com/CachyOS/proton-cachyos) given how popular CachyOS is now.
Guide - An idiots guide to setting up Minecraft on Steam Deck / SteamOS with controller support
By blindcoder, 28 Oct 2025 at 10:07 am UTC
By blindcoder, 28 Oct 2025 at 10:07 am UTC
Thank you, I just setup the Steam Deck using this guide and now my kid and I can play together on my own server! <3
Guide - How to setup OpenMW for modern Morrowind on Linux / SteamOS and Steam Deck
By Cu5t0m1z3, 19 Oct 2025 at 8:43 pm UTC
By Cu5t0m1z3, 19 Oct 2025 at 8:43 pm UTC
I think you missed a huge part of playing a TES game by leaving out modding. I know modding on Linux tends to be difficult but the website modding-openmw makes it so easy.
I followed their Automatic Installation guide for the Total Overhaul of 589 mods on Linhx Mint and it worked flawlessly with no crashing after a few hours of playing. It downloads mods from Nexus through your terminal into your game install. If you pay for Nexus it'll be quicker and smoother, otherwise you have to acknowledge all 589 mods so it can take a few hours.
I followed their Automatic Installation guide for the Total Overhaul of 589 mods on Linhx Mint and it worked flawlessly with no crashing after a few hours of playing. It downloads mods from Nexus through your terminal into your game install. If you pay for Nexus it'll be quicker and smoother, otherwise you have to acknowledge all 589 mods so it can take a few hours.
Guide - How to setup OpenMW for modern Morrowind on Linux / SteamOS and Steam Deck
By quot, 10 Oct 2025 at 2:47 pm UTC
By quot, 10 Oct 2025 at 2:47 pm UTC
The next release is focused around their new gamepad UI feature.
https://openmw.org/2025/openmw-0-50-0-is-now-in-rc-phase/
It's not officially released, but the RC releases of OMW are very stable.
https://openmw.org/2025/openmw-0-50-0-is-now-in-rc-phase/
It's not officially released, but the RC releases of OMW are very stable.