DaemonForums  

Go Back   DaemonForums > Miscellaneous > Off-Topic

Off-Topic Everything else.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1   (View Single Post)  
Old 29th February 2012
xmorg xmorg is offline
Real Name: Tim Cooper
Fdisk Soldier
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: San Diego
Posts: 56
Default MassEffect 3, Wine, and EA...a rant.

Are my PC gaming days nearing a close?

Well they are not literally closing, there is still plenty of fun out there, GOG.com games for example, most are playable via wine. Dwarf fortress, and Mount and blade warband are another.

However, the whole Idea of anticipating the next big game is getting harder and harder as you start to see your hopes dashed because of the state of PC gaming in general, and rolling the dice as to whether or not it works with wine. Call me a curmudgeon but it seems that all the big names are moving to heavy drm and digital content distribution (their own method)

In attempting to download the mass effect demo, i was directed to download something from EA called "originthinsetup.exe" Origin winehq ratings range from gold to garbage but for me nothing happens when trying to run the installer. Oddly Steam mentions Nothing about mass effect 3! So is EA going to distribute ME3 exclusively? MY hope is that a boxed set version of ME3 will not require this to run, but most likely it will in order to "phone home", every time you play. Is it too much to ask? Install yet another overly intrusive piece of software that collects data on you, etc?

I have already had my issues with Steam and skyrim, where steam force patches skyrim whether or not you said don't patch, erases the executable before patching to ensure you cant play it, etc. One of the patches broke the user interface and i had to get a friend to give him his prepatched interface bsa just to be able to finish the game. The original skyrim exe could be ran without steam and that changed VERY quickly. Because of its connection with steam you cannot freshly install skyrim without patching, and even if you unplugged your system, it would install the game without any executable file.

Also worthy of mention is the Stardock/impulse, now gamestop whatever .NET piece of trash client. In theory it should be better than steam because you do not need it to play the game. However, it doesn't run well with wine, even if you manage to get .NET installed with winetricks, and it was impossible to patch elemental WOM without it, and since elemental had graphical issues in wine, you kept trying to patch it hoping it would improve.

So my rant is against the cloud, and digital content distribution which further solidifies the concept or you not owning what you paid (now approaching 70$USD) for. It is convenient, I will admit. However, there are now so many out there, it kinda defeats the purpose of having a centralized "app store" to go get the latest games, and the need for more web accounts and more passwords to remember. You could possibly loose a whole library of games if you forgot your password or got banned from a forum for some reason or another.

So congrats EA for pushing another player away and towards the ever increasing, and ever improving collections of free/opensource/commercial indie games.

% uname -a
FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE wine-1.4-rc3
Reply With Quote
  #2   (View Single Post)  
Old 29th February 2012
Carpetsmoker's Avatar
Carpetsmoker Carpetsmoker is offline
Real Name: Martin
Tcpdump Spy
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 2,243
Default

Except for the occasional game of angband or slashem I gave up gaming on FreeBSD years ago. I just use Windows.

I always use cracks/warez downloads even for games I buy. Steam is aptly named because it is a steaming pile of shit. I just want to download games, how complicated can you make this? (gog.com is a great site and I bought a whole bunch of games there).

In any case, I think there are bigger problems in gaming-land ...
__________________
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.
Reply With Quote
  #3   (View Single Post)  
Old 1st March 2012
vermaden's Avatar
vermaden vermaden is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: pl_PL.lodz
Posts: 1,056
Default

@xmorg

You should try the most popular Windows 'AppStore' called ThePirateBay ;p
__________________
religions, worst damnation of mankind
"If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened." Linus Torvalds

Linux is not UNIX! Face it! It is not an insult. It is fact: GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not UNIX”.
vermaden's: links resources deviantart spreadbsd
Reply With Quote
  #4   (View Single Post)  
Old 1st March 2012
roddierod's Avatar
roddierod roddierod is offline
Real Name: Rod Person
VPN Cryptographer
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Pittsburgh, Pa
Posts: 437
Default

I've been playing the Elder Scroll series since Daggerfall, but I'm not a big gamer or follow any of the gaming board or such. Needless to say, I bought Skyrim without hesitation only to be "WTF'd" when installing the DVD wanted to make a steam account and connect to this site. I got everything installed verified and found the offline mode settings.

Two days ago I went to play Skyrim and I get..."game not available", WTF, how is something I installed on my machine not available? After a few hours of searching it turns out that somehow a file was corrupted. How? Who knows, but I have to log into steam and find the verify games files, so it could download new files! OK, I'm just ranting sorry...

But, Morrowind and Daggerfall are playable on FreeBSD via wine and dosbox. Although I haven't tried them on AMD64, yet.
__________________
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." -Philip K. Dick
Reply With Quote
  #5   (View Single Post)  
Old 2nd March 2012
xmorg xmorg is offline
Real Name: Tim Cooper
Fdisk Soldier
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: San Diego
Posts: 56
Default FreeBSD

I still play games on FreeBSD. Skyrim does work, with a little bit of effort.
However wine may still hit that 32-bit wall. Wine is 32 bit and it may be a long while before its 64 bit. As motherboards support more and more ram, you will need a gimped box just to play...

But games in general are "not as good" as they used to be.(showing my age?) For example Dragon Age Origins was 100 times better than DA2, which had an inferior story, less player animations, less options and a rushed feel. You could tell that 90% of the enemies you killed was the same "masked thug" that you just killed, etc, getting very repetitive. I honestly think I wont miss anything with Mass Effect 3, if I just watch a playthrough on youtube. Im really not interested in playing MassHalo Reach online, the multiplayer feature.
Reply With Quote
  #6   (View Single Post)  
Old 3rd March 2012
Carpetsmoker's Avatar
Carpetsmoker Carpetsmoker is offline
Real Name: Martin
Tcpdump Spy
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 2,243
Default

Quote:
I still play games on FreeBSD. Skyrim does work, with a little bit of effort.
However wine may still hit that 32-bit wall. Wine is 32 bit and it may be a long while before its 64 bit. As motherboards support more and more ram, you will need a gimped box just to play...
Skyrim will use a maximum of 2GB memory anyway, so this shouldn't be a problem ... There are some unofficial patches to change this though (Haven't tried them myself).
__________________
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.
Reply With Quote
  #7   (View Single Post)  
Old 3rd March 2012
vermaden's Avatar
vermaden vermaden is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: pl_PL.lodz
Posts: 1,056
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by xmorg View Post
But games in general are "not as good" as they used to be.(showing my age?) For example Dragon Age Origins was 100 times better than DA2, which had an inferior story, less player animations, less options and a rushed feel. You could tell that 90% of the enemies you killed was the same "masked thug" that you just killed, etc, getting very repetitive. I honestly think I wont miss anything with Mass Effect 3, if I just watch a playthrough on youtube. Im really not interested in playing MassHalo Reach online, the multiplayer feature.
I could tell the same (also age?) ... if I want to play a good RPG game, I 'go back' to Torment, BG1/BG2, IWD, ToEE and similar.

IMHO the good (c)RPG ended with the first release of Neverwinter Nights.
__________________
religions, worst damnation of mankind
"If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened." Linus Torvalds

Linux is not UNIX! Face it! It is not an insult. It is fact: GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not UNIX”.
vermaden's: links resources deviantart spreadbsd
Reply With Quote
  #8   (View Single Post)  
Old 8th March 2012
Carpetsmoker's Avatar
Carpetsmoker Carpetsmoker is offline
Real Name: Martin
Tcpdump Spy
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 2,243
Default

__________________
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.
Reply With Quote
  #9   (View Single Post)  
Old 9th March 2012
roddierod's Avatar
roddierod roddierod is offline
Real Name: Rod Person
VPN Cryptographer
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Pittsburgh, Pa
Posts: 437
Default

Exactly!
__________________
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." -Philip K. Dick
Reply With Quote
Old 12th March 2012
vermaden's Avatar
vermaden vermaden is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: pl_PL.lodz
Posts: 1,056
Default

Today's "cRPG" ...

__________________
religions, worst damnation of mankind
"If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened." Linus Torvalds

Linux is not UNIX! Face it! It is not an insult. It is fact: GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not UNIX”.
vermaden's: links resources deviantart spreadbsd
Reply With Quote
Old 12th March 2012
roddierod's Avatar
roddierod roddierod is offline
Real Name: Rod Person
VPN Cryptographer
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Pittsburgh, Pa
Posts: 437
Default

LOL.
__________________
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." -Philip K. Dick
Reply With Quote
Old 12th March 2012
Carpetsmoker's Avatar
Carpetsmoker Carpetsmoker is offline
Real Name: Martin
Tcpdump Spy
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 2,243
Default

Heh, I've seen at least 2 other Skyrim-spoof comics with pretty much the same joke.

Anyhow, it *seriously* bothered me while playing Skyrim. Even with all the mods for a more immersive experience it still felt like a "toy game" instead of a real adventure RPG ... I had hoped Skyrim would be an improvement over all those annoyances that I (and many like me) had in Oblivion. It was not .

I finished the main quest, but skipped much of the sidequests and exploring, after a while it just got tedious and I had a lot of deja-vu moments from Oblivion. I also found the general storyline(s) and characters lacking in depth and complexity, it's all pretty shallow and simplistic.
I felt a bit like watching Stargate, it's Science fiction in the sense that it has aliens and pew-pew lasers and space battles, but in the end it's really missing the point of science fiction. (I hope there are enough SF people here that get this).

Anyone remember Thief by the way? A low budget game from 1998 did a lot better (on this topic) than a high-budget game from 2012. This is pathetic & ridiculous (it's really not that difficult).

Bethesda did better on Fallout 3 by the way, and Fallout New Vegas was lots better (Not made by Bethesda btw).

My favorite cRPG? Arcanum, Baldur's Gate 2, Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment (In alphabetical order, they're all pretty damn good). If you look at best rated/most played games lists, many of these consistently rank among the top few, so one has to wonder why there aren't more of these games being made ... (I have a few idea's, but not really sure on them)
__________________
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.
Reply With Quote
Old 12th March 2012
roddierod's Avatar
roddierod roddierod is offline
Real Name: Rod Person
VPN Cryptographer
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Pittsburgh, Pa
Posts: 437
Default

I definitely understand the tediousness of Skyrim, personally I like the side quests more. My daughter enjoys it and likes it better that Oblivion so maybe it made for a younger crowd, she's 15. I still think Daggerfall was the best of the Elderscrolls series.

If I had and RPG wish, it would be that someone would go back to the older games like Daggerfall and just update the graphics and leave everything else alone - we'll fix that thing were the guards are godlike.

I tried running Rome Total War last night on 9 AMD64, using both packages from here http://people.freebsd.org/~ivoras/wine/ and had no luck. I used to play that Caesar III/IV using wine on 32bit FreeBSD...I try messing around more later and see if I can get them working.
__________________
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." -Philip K. Dick
Reply With Quote
Old 12th March 2012
phoenix's Avatar
phoenix phoenix is offline
Risen from the ashes
 
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 696
Default

I'm still waiting for good ol' turn-based RPGs to make a comeback. I really, really, really, really (did I mention REALLY?) dislike real-time RPGs. And third-person/second-person/first-person click-fests (like WoW, Diablo, and their ilk) are some of the worst. I want to control a party of characters of various classes, and take my time to pick and choose their actions for each turn. I want to actually THINK, and not just twitch-react to things. I want my RPG time to be enjoyable, not stressful (except when facing huge enemy parties with lots of big bad boss-types).

I had such high hopes for NeverWinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, and the Icewind Dale series of Forgotten Realms RPG games. But after actually playing Icewind Dale I and II, I have to say that cRPGs are just adventure games with characters that level up.

I was really hoping for improved graphics on top of the old Forgotten Realms / Pools of Twilight / DragonLance RPGs from the late 80s/ealry 90s. To me, that was the golden age of cRPGs. Everything since has just been the FPS-ification of RPGs.
__________________
Freddie

Help for FreeBSD: Handbook, FAQ, man pages, mailing lists.
Reply With Quote
Old 12th March 2012
roddierod's Avatar
roddierod roddierod is offline
Real Name: Rod Person
VPN Cryptographer
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Pittsburgh, Pa
Posts: 437
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by phoenix View Post
I was really hoping for improved graphics on top of the old Forgotten Realms / Pools of Twilight / DragonLance RPGs from the late 80s/ealry 90s. To me, that was the golden age of cRPGs. Everything since has just been the FPS-ification of RPGs.
You mean the old SSI games, that had the cardboard wheel that you had to match up the character to enter the code...now that was copy protection!
I think I still have that wheel...speaking of that anyone know of a 5 1/4" usb floppy
__________________
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." -Philip K. Dick
Reply With Quote
Old 12th March 2012
vermaden's Avatar
vermaden vermaden is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: pl_PL.lodz
Posts: 1,056
Default

@Carpetsmoker

Morrowind seems to be the last enjoyable Elder Scrolls game.

Quote:
Originally Posted by roddierod View Post
I tried running Rome Total War last night on 9 AMD64, using both packages from here http://people.freebsd.org/~ivoras/wine/ and had no luck. I used to play that Caesar III/IV using wine on 32bit FreeBSD...I try messing around more later and see if I can get them working.
I played several games (on amd64) under VirtualBox since WINE@amd64 (even with ivoras package) is limited to 2D only, we will have to wait for WINE64


Quote:
Originally Posted by phoenix View Post
I had such high hopes for NeverWinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, and the Icewind Dale series of Forgotten Realms RPG games. But after actually playing Icewind Dale I and II, I have to say that cRPGs are just adventure games with characters that level up.
Neverwinter Nights is a big sh!t, they even screw-up the whole DnD3 implementation, and yes, Icewind Dale I & II are mostly hack'n'slash on simplified DnD2 rules, Baldur's Gate I & II are more cRPG like then Icewind Dale, but still not best. IMHO You should focus on Planescape: Torment, a trully beatiful cRPG. Fallout 1 & 2 also are very 'RPG' IMHO. There is also an interesting 'bastard' called Lionheart, which is something like Baldur's Gate on Fallout's S.P.E.C.I.A.L system, works quite well, I found that game also enjoyable.

There is also Temple of Elemental Evil using DnD3, alos found that game quite enjoyable.

Not really RPG's, more strategies with RPG elements, the well known Heroes ]I[ ... and a lot less known tour-based strategies called Disciples I and II.
__________________
religions, worst damnation of mankind
"If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened." Linus Torvalds

Linux is not UNIX! Face it! It is not an insult. It is fact: GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not UNIX”.
vermaden's: links resources deviantart spreadbsd

Last edited by phoenix; 13th March 2012 at 10:34 PM. Reason: Remove duplicate paragraphs. Copy/paste error?
Reply With Quote
Old 13th March 2012
phoenix's Avatar
phoenix phoenix is offline
Risen from the ashes
 
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 696
Default

Interesting timing:
http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/0...s-wasteland-ii

Looks like the guy behind Wasteland wants to make a sequel, and is looking to Kickstarter for funding.
__________________
Freddie

Help for FreeBSD: Handbook, FAQ, man pages, mailing lists.
Reply With Quote
Old 14th March 2012
vermaden's Avatar
vermaden vermaden is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: pl_PL.lodz
Posts: 1,056
Default

@phoenix

Just wanted to add that here

Great news.

There is also Mark Morgan involved for making sound and music, some other guy that was also part of the Fallout team.
__________________
religions, worst damnation of mankind
"If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened." Linus Torvalds

Linux is not UNIX! Face it! It is not an insult. It is fact: GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not UNIX”.
vermaden's: links resources deviantart spreadbsd
Reply With Quote
Old 16th March 2012
Carpetsmoker's Avatar
Carpetsmoker Carpetsmoker is offline
Real Name: Martin
Tcpdump Spy
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 2,243
Default

Speaking of Baldur's Gate:
http://www.baldursgate.com/

Quote:
Atari, Wizards of the Coast, and Overhaul Games are pleased to announce work has begun on the Enhanced Edition of Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II.

[...]

Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition™ and Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition™ will feature a re-forged version of the Infinity Engine with a variety of modern improvements.
__________________
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.
Reply With Quote
Old 16th March 2012
vermaden's Avatar
vermaden vermaden is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: pl_PL.lodz
Posts: 1,056
Default

If they PROPERLY implement DND3.5 or DND4 for these Baldur's Gate enhanced versions, it may be fun.
__________________
religions, worst damnation of mankind
"If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened." Linus Torvalds

Linux is not UNIX! Face it! It is not an insult. It is fact: GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not UNIX”.
vermaden's: links resources deviantart spreadbsd
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Wine: Your Experiences ninjatux Off-Topic 10 4th June 2013 12:48 PM
WINE - DragonFlyBSD klanger Other BSD and UNIX/UNIX-like 2 13th May 2010 09:44 PM
Wine OpenBSD Oko OpenBSD Packages and Ports 11 4th November 2009 11:19 PM
wine.conf bsdnewbie999 OpenBSD General 6 15th July 2008 04:08 PM
Wine on OpenBSD 4.3 WeakSauceIII OpenBSD Packages and Ports 10 25th May 2008 07:03 PM


All times are GMT. The time now is 09:03 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Content copyright © 2007-2010, the authors
Daemon image copyright ©1988, Marshall Kirk McKusick