Quoting: FSFmember

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: FSFmemberahhaaha Yea but you see - How did you like the game? I think Divinity OS 2 to be one of the best if not the best RPG ever made. Maybe Baldurs Gate 3 will triumph that, we'll see. What are your thoughts though? as I only play that in Single Player.

Apologies I'm not sure if this is too much OT in which case MODS feel free to moderate myself

Cheers

We were waiting to beat the first one to try the second one; unfortunately we haven't beaten the first one yet.

I recommend skipping it and starting D:OS 2.
I think it's just so much better - never finished the first game either. Stopped in Act 1 actually. D:OS2 on the other hand... charmed.

Once we figured out how to not burn each other, the first one was very fun. We are quite far into it. Also, a little happier, that one got a native Linux port, whereas part 2 did not.

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Quoting: FSFmemberahhaaha Yea but you see - How did you like the game? I think Divinity OS 2 to be one of the best if not the best RPG ever made. Maybe Baldurs Gate 3 will triumph that, we'll see. What are your thoughts though? as I only play that in Single Player.

Apologies I'm not sure if this is too much OT in which case MODS feel free to moderate myself

Cheers

We were waiting to beat the first one to try the second one; unfortunately we haven't beaten the first one yet. Been a long while since we were able to get together to play it, as you could play that locally on the same computer, and it acts weird online since we have to use steam remote play (my brother needs better internet).

I haven't bought the early version of BG3 yet... been waiting for the full release.

Probably the best RPG I've ever played is either Ultima IV or Alternate Reality (shame it was never finished).

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Quoting: TheSHEEEPIndeed.

On Pharaoh itself...
Usually, historical games are not really my cup of tea, but with Troy they eventually added mythical creatures and people rightfully loved that addition.

Sticking to historical units just limits possibilities so much compared to when you have magic + creatures available.
There's only so much you can do with basic archers, swordsmen, pikemen and cavalry. And that gets old quickly in this kind of game.

Three Kingdoms was a really good game (in many regards better than WH3), but the limited unit variety still meant the game died a very quick death through players stopping to play, as all factions were basically identical except for cosmetics.

From the description, it sounds to me like this could be another Three Kingdoms - but I'm really curious if or how they want to spice it up.

Sphinx units would be sweet!

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Quoting: FSFmember

Quoting: slaapliedjeHa, definitely made the game far more difficult from a strategic point of view. I mean if you're playing some RPG, generally speaking throwing something explosive into the midst of your friends and enemies, you don't turn off friendly fire either...

I see where you're coming from slaapliedje, but I won't buy it No let me explain. Off course I agree with you in general. But did you actually play Diablo 1 with a mage+warrior combo? You see, what you said is true for games like Divinity Original Sin 2 where you *can* influence your actions, your position on the map etc... In Diablo 1 on PlayStation, you simply pressed Fire button constantly and there was nowhere to go, because both players had to stay on the same screen (low real estate, nowhere to run) and it was hard to not off the warrior who was offing the same skellys. Sure, we managed, but the experience wasn't so much fun and that's why we play the games, aren't we? To have fun.

Cheers

Ha, no I can't say as I have ever played Diablo 1 on the PS1. I only played it on the PC back in the day, and only a few times multiplayer, but it was on LAN, and so we each had our own screens.

That's just a bad game design like that.

Divinity Original Sin; my brother and I played on Linux, and it took him a bit to understand that his flame spell would follow wherever he moved his cursor, so he learned to NOT have it go over our characters, as it'd kill us every damn time!

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Quoting: Raaben

Quoting: slaapliedjeI haven't checked if the Feral ones are

I do remember this comment from a while back.

Definitely that comment. Not sure why we even call it a 'wrapper', Wine is to me more like a Translator. Though I probably favor that as it reminds me of the Translator that was required for some games to work (and others to work correctly) for the Atari 800XL from the earlier Atari 400/800.

Weirdly I did not realize that oh so long ago the version of Mario Bros that I had with distorted music was only distorted due to not using Translator!

But yeah, native to me means that they took whatever source code there is and built up a binary that uses the libraries that exist on the Linux system, rather than utilizing wine to translate Windows calls into Linux calls. Whether that is via some form of wrapper or not, making elf executable binaries is what makes something 'native.'

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Quoting: FSFmember

Quoting: slaapliedjeI am cruel to myself and play Diablo 1 on my Amiga!

I played it on PlayStation. Yeah I remember to this day how it was slowing down when there was too many effects/enemies on the same screen

Also Played with my friend (I had those back then... crazy idea ) and i was a mage. He was a warrior. Do you know what was constantly happening? :D yeah, he went on to smashing the skeletons with an axe and I fired a... surprise surprise... a Fireball that destroyed the skelly but also my warrior friend...
Naaah it wasn't a Schadenfreude or anything related I swear. haha the mage was simply so superior to the war class it was crazy AND the friendly fire couldn't be turned off - simply it was not posssible. Thus the co-op play was a test of friendship rather than an enjoyable experience, gotta admit
I think we all naturally like to remember the good, we feel nostalgia, but did you actually try to play some old games like diablo 1 recently? Boy they suck...

Current games are so much better!

Cheers

Ha, definitely made the game far more difficult from a strategic point of view. I mean if you're playing some RPG, generally speaking throwing something explosive into the midst of your friends and enemies, you don't turn off friendly fire either...

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I am cruel to myself and play Diablo 1 on my Amiga!

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: Liam DaweUpdate: Feral Interactive emailed me to correct the record that they're not actually doing a Linux port this time. They said the Creative Assembly FAQ post was incorrect. Feral are now doing macOS only.

Wow, that's kind of short sighted, isn't it?

Ha, does this mean you should just take the article down, since it's no longer 'gaming on linux' if they're not providing a Linux port?

No I’m not going to take an article down that has a clear correction.

I was joking (hence the 'ha'). Shame that they're not doing a port.

I'm subscribed to the Civilization VI Linux thread, and it's actually a really bad look for native games when the Proton version runs better, and doesn't have to wait for patches. I actually had to argue that the Aspyr ports are native ones (as evidenced by what libraries they're linked to), I haven't checked if the Feral ones are. I thought some of them used some sort of automated porting thing that wrapped some calls via wine? (I might be thinking of the VP ones, like The Witcher 2).

I also tend to think a lot of the lack of native ports to Linux these days is due to there being more effort required to port to the Macs due to now needing an ARM version as well. I saw some of this on the Aspyr forums, where they are having a hard time getting all of their older stuff to work on MacOS due to the dropping of 32bit support and the shift to ARM.

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Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: F.UltraI think that it's a bit more complicated than that, yes patent trolls use this all the time, they have no products and no employees so that they will never ever be hit by a countersuit. But then you could be a lone inventor that just invents new interesting stuff that you then license out to industry that have the capacity to create the stuff that you yourself doesn't and such a rule would hurt such individuals.

Yeah, though licensing stuff out still kind of makes you a patent troll, right? The lone inventor should be able to pitch his idea to a company that either pays him a bunch for it, or royalties, and then that company makes such things. This is how it used to happen.

Then again it used to be that you bought software and owned that copy for your usage, these days you just rent software that becomes obsolete the moment the publishers decide they don't want it to work anymore.

No a patent troll is someone that collects patents to then go look for companies to sue for infringement. You inventing something and then licensing it out to companies that find your invention useful is exactly your "pays him a bunch for it, or royalties". Hiding the patents in secret until you find an infringing party is the troll part of the patent troll.

E.g lets say that you invent some new fantastic new thing that makes something in cars much better, cheaper and environmentally friendlier. Would it be better for society for you to just throw that idea away because you have not enough money to create cars, or if you did then only your cars would benefit from this and no one elses, or you licensing the patent out to all car manufacturers for a fair price which is win-win for everyone.

Ofc you could just hand out the idea for free (which under the current patent system means that some of the big companies could patent it under the first to file rule and thus lock everyone else out including you) or you could hand the patent out for free and starve to death.

This is not a defence of the current patent system, just that I don't think that automatically invalidating patents from holders that do not produce anything would be beneficial for society, or rather it would be less beneficial for society than the current broken system, aka make it more broken and not less.

That software in many aspects is no longer owned but rented out have nothing to do with patents, that is all covered within copyright (which is another system that is broken), though at the same time copyright is what protects things like the GPL from being exploited.

IMHO the main problem is more to do with greed, not to go to far politically here since this is a forum for games and not politics but one way could be to cap the amount of wealth a person or company could acquire, say by means of the type of progressive tax regulation that existed in the US before JFK loosened it up where the top tax bracket was 94% and limiting the time on patents and copyright to more decent values, I mean 25 years for a patent in our fast evolving world is en eternity.

Ha, not sure why you're saying the same thing I'm saying, but saying I'm not. :P

To correct you on what a patent troll is and to point out that the hole in your idea to solve this by invalidating patents if the holder does not produce anything.

I know what a patent troll is. It is by its very definition someone who sits on a patent and doesn't create anything and only forces others to pay them or they sue if they want to make something similar.

If you patent something, you should be required to actual produce / create thathat thing. Whether that is selling it to a company to do that for you, or doing it yourself.

It also used to be required for a prototype to exist before you could get a patent. That changed at some point, so now you can patent an idea.

Patent trolls usually buy other patents and simply make money off of suing or licensing and do not ever make anything.

Wikipedia:

QuoteIn international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or contribution to the prior art,[1] often through hardball legal tactics (frivolous litigation, vexatious litigation, strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP), chilling effects, and the like).

That does not, to me at least, sound like some one coming up with fantastic new inventions to then license them out via the patent to willing companies in order for them to create better products. The main difference is that the trolls are hiding the patents (so not licensing them out) to only later file suits out of nowhere (hence the name of trolls, since they hide under the bridge).

A living example is Håkan Lans, who happens to be Swedish, he have invented lots of stuff that is used the world over by several industries. He does not produce anything himself and he is not a patent troll (he was trolled by HP, Dell and Compaq though since they basically stole his patents).

Right, not all of them hide under the bridge, some of them hang around and just leap out like brigands. Read up about Commodore and the XOR. They were basically taken out by a patent troll. Everyone else paid the bridge toll, but Commodore refused / couldn't, so the CD32 was blocked from being sold in the USA.

Software patents should never have been granted by the USPTO and the XOR patent in itself is a perfect example of why considering just how simple and silly it is. And Cadtrak is a sorry state of a company, they initially did products and services but then sales when bad they went all patent troll.

The thing is though, if the solution to this problem is to invalidate patents held by people and/or corporations that doesn't produce any products then how would you get about raising money to develop your splendid idea or how would you manage to sell it to off to a company to get royalties since they could all just steal your idea since you cannot patent it (or even if you did patent it then you would loose it since you have no production).

Also if that requirement would ever take effect then the patent trolls would probably just buy some low volume AliExpress producer to claim that "yes we have products, we are not a troll". So I don't see this as a solution.

This is how the patents were originally. You needed to show some sort of working prototype for it. Granted this was back when the patent office was first formed. One couldn't just make shit up and then get a patent for it. That was my point. The prototyping of it, and then getting it to a company that can mass produce it is the entire purpose of the patent system, so the inventor can then get paid for the invention, with profits also going to the company mass producing it. Everybody wins, consumers have a new thing to use as well. The problem these days is you need a bunch of money to even get a patent. So many corporations offer to file the patent for inventors, but then the inventors get screwed over, and may get nothing from their own ideas. (anecdotally heard about some guy who supposedly had this happen to him for the air cushion in some shoes, or something like that (heard the story a decade+ ago)).

But yes, software patents are the worse. And back on subject, most of the patents that Immersion owns at this stage are software, right? I haven't actually looked, but it seemed that way back in the day as well.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: 14

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: 14Even though I play board games with a couple friends on a routine schedule, they will never play a pen & paper RPG again. We did it long ago with a DM that we didn't enjoy, and they're stuck with that memory and won't ever try it again. So, programs like this would be a hopeless, disappointing waste of time and money for me.

/saltiness

Sad. But I could see this happening for sure. Sometimes the RPG experience is just a reason for friends to get together. Boards games work as well, but I think the advantage of RPGs is you don't have to learn new rules every time you get together (unless of course you play the same board games over and over.)

We used to learn a new game every time because one of my friends has a very large collection that continues to grow. Not too long ago, we switched to sticking to a new game for 2-3 sessions in a row so we get better at it. We've got a good thing going that I can't complain too much about.

Even with board games, it's nice if you don't have to spend half the evening learning the rules every dashed time.
Now our group is kind of at the other end of that--although we've tried a few game systems over the years, the initial GURPS campaign we started in 1987 is still going. Every now and then we start new characters, but the old ones are still around, just settled down a bit because they're rich and powerful. So that's the same game system for, what, 36 years?

I love GURPS, though its flexibility also made it so I had a billion game ideas back in the day and so we were always trying out different genres.

Oh hell yeah. I did a cyberpunk game with magic and vicious art critics, we had a Wild West campaign with psionics and magic, did a campaign set in David Brin's "Uplift Wars" universe (there's actually a GURPS supplement for that), various interstellar SF things.

The dangers of vicious art critics cannot be fully described using the English language!

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