Btw how does one get the IWAD files out of the Doom bought from GOG, I reckon that it's a Windows installer so do one have to do a wine install and then move some files or is it possible to open the installer with an archiver and get the files that way or how does this work?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: throgh

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: razing32Are data slurps the new trend ?
I get helping with development but it seems to be a default nowadays .

It's the default because it's so extremely helpful to know exactly what kind of setup your customers actually use.

And it is exactly that kind of wrong doing this. Instead it would be better asking for help and not collecting information as default setting or some kind of opt-out process. Besides: We are not talking about "customers" and instead of that "users". Those steps do irreversible damage to free software!

Then you get data from a very small subset of the users and the data is basically useless. Collecting what HW you have and sending it home anonymized is hardly spying and I have no idea how you can paint this as doing irreversible damage to free software. The collecting that you should worry about is the "who you are and what you do" type of data that Google, Microsoft, Facebook et al collects since that can be used to profile you, the same cannot be said if you happen to have 8 cores or 4.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: razing32Are data slurps the new trend ?
I get helping with development but it seems to be a default nowadays .

It's the default because it's so extremely helpful to know exactly what kind of setup your customers actually use.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: TheRiddickMS and NVIDIA would be very happy if Vulkan died off, or developers steer away from it. But realistically who wants to forever be locked in to Windows10 and XBOX1 platform? at least who in their right mind would...

Actually I think that many studios would be happy to be locked to a single platform like XBOX1 if this also meant that all customers where locked into it and there where no middle man taking 30% of the profits.

That would be the rub, though (well, one of them). Once all your customers are stuck on one platform and you're dependent on the tools made by the vendor of that platform, they can take as much of your profits as they want, because you have no other choices. It's the vendor's tools or you're not selling anything.
Why do people think companies struggle so hard to gain monopolies? Why do people think laws got passed against monopolies in the first place?

Yes, I am fully aware of the dangers of vendor lock in and/or monopoly but I'm not 100% sure that all studios are. My original comment was an observation not an opinion :)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: TheRiddickMS and NVIDIA would be very happy if Vulkan died off, or developers steer away from it. But realistically who wants to forever be locked in to Windows10 and XBOX1 platform? at least who in their right mind would...

Actually I think that many studios would be happy to be locked to a single platform like XBOX1 if this also meant that all customers where locked into it and there where no middle man taking 30% of the profits. A single platform means far easier development and also that you can cheaply create a remaster for the next gen console and sell the same game once more and console means less piracy.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

This have exactly nothing to do with anything technical, it's all management decisions. That they releases Skyrim on the Switch is probably not only due to the Switch being a success but also that they have some back room deal with Nintendo for supporting the platform.

They will not sell the rights to Feral because what if Linux gaming suddenly takes off, then they would loose a lot of sales to Feral. So they would have to make the deal so expensive that Feral could not ever accept it. Also for some companies control is a big issue and they will never outsource any parts to an outside company like Feral and thus loose control over the Linux port.

Look at how Warner handled No One Lives Forever, they decided in the end to not earn any money on a re-release now since they perhaps one day in the future might decide to do it in house (which will never happen). Big corporations can afford to be this stupid.

That is not to say that things like SDL and Vulkan are stupid like some of the posters here have written. Yes that will not automagically make a Linux port happen, but it increases the likelihood of it happening. Once the management side decides to do it there have to also be a technical decision on the amount of work needed. Here we have the technical side ok but the management side denying the port, it could as easily have been the other way around as well. We need them both on our side.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Patola

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: PatolaBut Maniac Mansion was already playable in Linux inside Maniac Mansion 2 (Day of Tentacle Remastered). The complete game is accessible on the Arcade in the doctor's house.

Now you don't have to own another game to have it, simples.

Ok, then just a word of caution: Maniac Mansion is a good game, but it has lots of "points of no return", that is, you can screw up the sequence and get into a game state where you can't get to the end. Only after that game (or was it Zak McKraken?) LucasArts started making adventure games without points of no return (or deaths, for that matter).

It must have been after Zak because there where points of no return in that game, one very annoying one where you could feed some necessary item to the two-headed squirrel early in the game only to find out hours later that it was needed.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: orochi_kyoThese extreme hipsters are annoying, I support open software and indie gaming, but if big companies opens a door to developers for publish their games, why not taking the chance?
Steam contrary to console platforms are not signing exclusive deals, you can release your game everywhere, GOG, your site, Itch, Steam, etc.
Its Steam, not stupid Monsanto or Bayer.

Exactly how did you work in Monsanto here? Let's not go down the rabbit hole of those pro pseudoscience anti-GMO folks.

GMO crops are a lot like DRM on games. DRM makes games harder to play and maintain, and doesn't do what it's advertised to do (stop piracy), but it does allow invocation of draconian laws to control consumer behaviour (and in some cases, the behaviour of competitors). Genetic modification is bad for the crops and the consumers, but the point is it lets you patent those crops and thereby shut down competition, control farmers, etc. For the corporations involved, the actual benefits any given genetic modification is supposed to provide are almost beside the point (except "Round-up Ready", because that lets them sell vastly more herbicide).
Don't get me wrong, I find the technologies of genetic modification fascinating. But, they are currently not mature. Before CRISPR, the main approach involved sticking a gene on a tiny golden cannonball and shooting the thing randomly into a cell's nucleus and hoping something stuck. Imagine shooting code randomly into a computer program and expecting it to do only whatever that piece of code was "supposed" to be for. If the patenting angle didn't allow for monopoly profits they'd still be largely in the lab.

No that is not how it works. Before GMO things worked that way (by cross-breading or e.g atomic gardening). Genetic modification is done for the benefit of the crop and the farmer so no it's not bad for the crop and it's not bad for the consumer either. Where do you people get these ideas from?

You can patent any form of seed and in fact all the cross-breed and clones that the non-GMO farmers use are also patented so companies like Monsanto does not create GMO:s in order to be able to patent the seeds, patenting is a completely different issue. And btw the patent on round up have expired.

And no GMO producers like Monsanto can not control the farmers, it's the farmers who choose to use GMO crops due to their added benefits and most farmers even buy from different manufacturers simultaneously in order to see which crop grows the best on their specific soil.

View video on youtube.com

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: buenaventura

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: orochi_kyoThese extreme hipsters are annoying, I support open software and indie gaming, but if big companies opens a door to developers for publish their games, why not taking the chance?
Steam contrary to console platforms are not signing exclusive deals, you can release your game everywhere, GOG, your site, Itch, Steam, etc.
Its Steam, not stupid Monsanto or Bayer.

Exactly how did you work in Monsanto here? Let's not go down the rabbit hole of those pro pseudoscience anti-GMO folks.

Not that I really fancy getting into this kind of trolly discussion, but back at university I came across Vandana Shiva as a respected scientist, and she was quite angry about Monsantos practices. Wikipedia paints a sort of complex picture:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#India

Difficult to link suicides to cotton seeds fully I guess, but still, who loves a giant corporation? Who defends Monsanto except trolls wanting me to write this so that they can write something stupid back? :P

Seriously? Vandana Shiva is a horrible person that pretends to be scientific but who in reality is a pseudoscience woo peddler. That she is against Golden Rice should tell you just how crazy she is (better to let thousands of children suffer from blindness and death than to grow a GMO, really?!).

There is a reason why the League of Nerds calls her the Nicolas Cage of woo movies: View video on youtube.com

Oh and the Indian suicides have been happening for a long time way before Monsanto (or any other GMO company) entered the Indian market.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: F.UltraExactly how did you work in Monsanto here?

Probably their Mafia-style business practices, but I agree, let's keep this on topic.

What Mafia-style business practises? If you are talking about them suing innocent farmers or suicides in India then you have been told lies and myths.

Don't you mean "fake news"? :P

No, "fake news" are usually used by people like Trump when they don't like the truth.

View this comment - View article - View full comments