I really love this concept of a portable console that runs desktop Linux and can run my games. Something between the smartphone (carry with you all the time, use in the middle of things, but mostly for light tasks) and the laptop (you can carry it around but must still sit on a desk or sofa to use). I mean, I would still prefer a good GNU+Linux smartphone with all the support Android gets, but that seems like a longer shot (yes, there were many trials, none was a smashing success).

But going full "deluxe gaming PC" in my opinion is the completely wrong direction to go. I may be biased because I don't much care for AAA and heavy graphics, but trying to compete with the performance of a high-end PC looks a fool's errand. People don't buy fancy hardware to play those games on a tiny screen, with a presumably worse performance/price ratio. With people trying to push cloud gaming to get away from hardware limitations, this seems particularly backwards. Now, a handheld geared at indies and not-so-recent games on the other hand...

The one thing about the SMACH Z that looks most interesting, though, is the control scheme. As someone that plays many games that aren't controller friendly, solutions to play the likes of Civ or EU4 without a mouse and keyboard are intriguing, and this looks to try to address this somewhat. The modularity (swap for a d-pad or buttons depending on the game) is also neat.

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One thing that puzzles me is when people expect Linux users to be candid to developers that don't support Linux because there are few Linux users and thus it wouldn't be worth it.

Look, that is the developer's problem. People shouldn't put the developers' interests above their own and just be happy someone is turning a profit by doing the opposite of what they want. Just as developers don't have to be accepting that you are pirating their game because of whatever circumstances. We are talking about commercial products, not charity projects.

If a developer chooses not to support Linux because it is not in his best interests, ok, he is also choosing that Linux users opinions don't matter. You are free to tell people "I won't support you", and they are free to answer "I will not support you either". If you try to explain your reasons, people will explain theirs.

Of course, it doesn't mean we shouldn't be polite and respectful in interactions like always... but then we have a problem with the Internet in general.

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I really dislike the argument of "would you be willing to pay more for a port". Rather, if I am going to buy the game without any official support it should be a lot cheaper, as an inferior product and since I'm not costing them any money in support going forward. Would they also want to charge extra for older Windows versions or any hardware configurations different from the standard? Maybe want to charge for bugfixes individually?

Heck, they accuse Linux users of "wanting things for free", but expect people to buy their game to use with Steamplay... without investing anything on Linux support. :S:

I'm actually pretty ok with small developers relying on Steamplay, so long as it works. In some cases it just makes sense for them, and for us very little changes - they would not feel confident enough to release for Linux anyway, or they would release the Linux build but wouldn't be able to offer a lot of support, or they are going to helpfully fix issues that arise when playing with Wine or Proton. But it is important to keep in mind that it is not the same. Whether the game is officially supported matters. Whether a developer chooses to support Linux or not matters, even for whitelisted games. Sometimes there will be issues with Proton a native version would not have (even if it is just a workaround needed). For some people those things will be a dealbreaker, and for others it will still carry some weight. So when a developer wants to pretend it is the same, they are either being disingenuous or intentionally overselling.

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Quoting: Doc AngeloI've not played Stellaris for very long, about 40 hours. (Which is not that long for 4x games...)

To me, those 5 bullet points sound like additional anomalies/special projects, which consist of a few short text screens, a small image and a 3d model. Is that about right?

Nope. They are creating a new system for archeological investigations (I guess some anomalies and special projects will now use this system). You find archeological sites (through surveys or in other ways), assign a scientist to work over time, he can progress in the chain or trigger random events. It has a new interface and everything, which you can see (along with more details, if you want) in this dev diary: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-145-archaeology.1170190/ . Besides that, there is a new resource called "minor artifacts" that you earn and use on various actions, gaining tech boosts or benefits to your planets.

There are also Relics, special "items" you can collect and that give you both passive and active bonuses. Some are from previous DLC, like the throne of the Great Khan (a space conqueror introduced in Apocalypse); I think there are 3 of those (available even without the new DLC), plus 20 from Ancient Relics. You can see the new screen and the pictures for some relics in this dev diary: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-148-relics-relic-worlds.1177865/ .

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This looks pretty cool. I'm particularly fond of Stellaris story packs, as I feel like the game benefits more than most from additional content (event chains, anomalies, interesting worlds, small factions/enemies to interact with, etc). But the addition of an archeology system also fits particularly well with many of the anomalies and missions we already have - including the existing precursor event chains.

I got back to playing Stellaris recently, and man is this game amazing now. Vanilla 2.2 is so great, and with all the DLC (well, almost all, didn't get Megacorp yet) it is so replayable and full of possibilities.

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When I read about the "community integration", I really thought they were hinting at Proton/Wine (among other things, of course). In a "we won't whitelist games like Steam but if people want to use the client to run things with a compatibility layer they can".

It was a long shot, but still a possibility until I saw the tweet saying the client won't even run on Linux. :/

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I think this is less serious than what they have done previously - I think if you put your own game on your own store only, that's more or less fair compared to paying others to not compete with you. And much less than paying someone to break their promises after crowdfunding and pre-order (Phoenix Point).

But after recent events, this isn't just a matter of them buying a successful studio and selling it on the most profitable store, it is yet another way they found of using their money in a way that takes games away from the Steam store.

Competition is so good, Epic could invest so much money into making a better platform or making games for their store but it is so much easier to spend it to make Steam worse. If you make all stores suck, your sucky store can compete much more easily!

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I'm not going to dive into VR for many years yet, if ever - I play strategy games on an old laptop - but I find Valve's commitment to open standards and intercompatibility really encouraging.

I don't see VR becoming mainstream any time soon; even the cheap alternatives are expensive, and have been so for years now. But does this hardware look cool.

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Hmm, the bugged release is surely a bummer. From what I remember, Stellaris (their last new release) was good on this front at least.

But yeah, Paradox at least has great post-launch support. And same-day native release is quite good.

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The issue is complicated. Regional pricing is an absolute necessity in many places; not having it can be effectively "not available in this region". The technical measures used to implement it, however, are basically DRM, and thus have serious implications.

In this case in particular, I kind of agree the point the EU is making. Within the EU, there shouldn't be limitations on "exporting" games, even if this affects the ability to offer a "more fair price". Also, many countries already use the same currency, which is one less concern (exchange rates rarely reflect purchasing power, but besides that it can fluctuate a lot which is a big problem). But I hope that Valve can figure out a better solution so that people in those countries aren't screwed by a corner case of international trade deals... since it apparently only affects key reselling, perhaps by limiting their policy in issuing keys they could keep the fair prices for purchases in the actual store?

Of course, ideally we could have a single price worldwide and no trade restrictions. But first we would need to figure out how to solve all the inequality in the world. The idea that you could just price a product in dollars and sell it worldwide is naive at best.

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