So we have action in this ARPG. I wonder if they are confident enough to show RPG bits before launch. Judging purely by the trailer, the game feels nothing like DA.
I really wish game and film companies would stop sharing trailers on xitter, and people should definitely find a different source before resharing it. We all need to quit driving traffic to Elon’s nazi bar.
We’ll see tomorrow, but I’m not convinced this wasn’t all planned. Negative marketing is a thing, and if they had assets left over from earlier development, it would have been a cheaper trailer to make. People are talking about how absurd the trailer was, and that’s a far, far better marketing result than apathy.
Who defines toxic behaviour? Is that definition clearly stated to players in a way that is not hidden? Is every report case of toxic behaviour carefully reviewed by a human?
This is an interesting idea but I can totally see this being maliciously abused.
Before you first launch the game, you must agree to the Riot Games terms of service. The terms very clearly state what is toxic behaviour and are pretty easy to read through. After the tutorial and before you queue for the first time, you must agree to an in game code of conduct, which is a summary of what “[good in game conduct]” (paraphrased) is.
Although it’s not confirmed, players seem to be punished based on the volume of in-game reports and some sort of review. When you report a player, there are categories you can choose that describe their conduct. There’s also a text box where you can type out what you feel they did.
For text chat violations, this sometimes happens automatically, and even without reports. For example, if you use a racist term, you will be immediately muted in text chat for a time.
Although it hasn’t been confirmed, Riot has been trailing a system where they actually record and transcribe in game voice chat. The rumour is that an in game report will trigger an automated and/or manual review of the transcript. For most reports, you’ll get a confirmation in a few hours that the player was punished and a thanks for the feedback that will help the community.
Punishments range from a competitive queue cooldown (these get progressively longer the more you repeat the behaviour, and reset after a stretch of good behaviour) to hardware ID bans for the worst cases. A hardware ID ban prevents the player from playing on any account on a PC with the same hardware fingerprint for at least 5mo, and, in some cases, permanently closes accounts that are suspected to be theirs.
If someone bought a bunch of in-game cosmetics, this will very likely cause them to move on to another game. But, of course, the worse offenders will find a way.
And btw, the terms also make it clear that when you buy in game cosmetics, you’re actually buying a non-transferable, revocable license to use them in-game. This license can be revoked at any time; for example if you violate the terms of service.
And also, Riot’s support site gives players a way to dispute bans, just in case a player was banned by mistake.
It’s not perfect (and the game isn’t even perfect in any way… far from it) but they at least make it clear what is toxic behaviour, and have put some thought into this system for trying to handle it. I think the video/article is more about stepping up manual review and scale of punishments for the worst offenders.
Haven’t played Alan Wake 2 yet, is it good? I remember the original one fairly fondly (it played really well on my underpowered laptop and thought the story was decent).
My wife is the Alan Wake fan. I never really saw much of the first one but when 2 was released I sat and watched her play it on PS5 and it was awesome. As just a watcher I was blown away and could watch her play it again. It’s a very well designed game imo.
Yes Alan Wake 2 is very good. It’s very unique and oozes with style. I really like the track Remedy is on lately, first with Control and now with Alan Wake 2, whereas their earlier games did not grab me.
Alan Wake 2 was my personal GotY last year (and yes, I also played BG3). It’s both great as a video game, but also doing something very different from other AAA games with a very unique artistic POV, which I admire. It’s also dramatically enhanced by having played AW1 and Control, as the Remedy Connected Universe is doing a sort of Marvel thing. Hell, it even pseudo-ties into Max Payne and Quantum Break.
I definitely recommend it, not least for that one specific moment which I can’t spoil. Also the soundtrack is an absolute banger, I still listen to Poe - This Road frequently.
Sorry Alan Wake 2. I won’t download Epic to play you. I want to play with you, but that’s asking too much.
I hope you stop being exclusive someday. But by the time that happens, I’ll have probably forgotten about you. If you’re lucky, I might remember and pick you up on sale.
I really hope this will be a lesson to other developers that signing up for Epic money to be an Epic exclusive means you exclude a huge chunk of the PC market.
the fact that gog is even in business is impressive to me.
You mean to tell me you can actually make money and run a successful company by just, respecting the customers? And giving them what they want? Even in late stage capitalism?
If the words on the internet are to be believed, GOG’s been running at a loss all this while, with papa Witcher covering the costs. Maintaining a large library of games is expensive.
I don’t really see the big problem here? Like sure, it’s silly that it’s cheaper to make wireless headphones than wired ones (I assume - the manufacturers are clearly not too bothered by trademarks and stuff if they put the Lightning logo on it so they wouldn’t avoid wired solution just due to licensing fees), but what business does Apple have in cracking down on this? Other than the obvious issues with trademarks, but those would be present even if it were true wired earphones. It’s just a knockoff manufacturer.
Cheapest possible wired earphones won’t sound much better than the cheapest possible wireless ones, so sound quality probably isn’t a factor. And on the plus side, you don’t have multiple batteries to worry about, or you could do something funny, like plugging the earphones into a powerbank in your pocket and have a freak “hybrid” earphones with multi-day battery (they’re not wireless, but also not tethered to your phone). On the other side, you do waste some power on the wireless link, which is not good for the environment in the long run (the batteries involved will see marginally more wear)
Honestly the biggest issue in my mind is forcing people to turn on Bluetooth, but I don’t think this will change anyone’s habits - people who don’t know what Bluetooth is will definitely just leave it on anyway (it’s the default state), and people technical enough to want to turn it off will recognize that there’s something fishy about these earphones.
Cheap Bluetooth might have connection hitches and, to my knowledge, Bluetooth doesn’t work with airplane mode although I think most airplanes these days aren’t actually affected or we’d have planes dropping out if the sky daily.
Also, does Bluetooth get saturated the way WiFi does? That, I don’t know, but an airplane full of 100 people all on Bluetooth might create some noise issues that would hurt the performance.
Apple sort of shot themselves in the foot here with removing the headphone jack if they had any interest in this issue.
Fair enough, but I’ve only ever seen this happen with cheap wireless cards / chipsets that do both Bluetooth and WiFi and don’t properly avoid interference between these two (for example, I can get perfectly functioning Bluetooth audio out of my laptop with shitty Realtek wireless card if I completely disable WiFi (not just disconnect)). I think this is less of an issue for dedicated Bluetooth devices.
Bluetooth doesn’t work with airplane mode although I think most airplanes these days aren’t actually affected or we’d have planes dropping out if the sky daily.
Yeah, that’s true. As for the second part, AFAIK there was never an issue with 2.4 GHz radios (which is the frequency band Bluetooth uses) interfering with planes, it was more of a liability / laws thing - the plane manufacturer never explicitly said that these radios are safe (so the airline just banned them to be safe) and/or laws didn’t allow non-certified radios to operate on planes.
Also, does Bluetooth get saturated the way WiFi does?
Eventually yes, but it’s much more resilient than WiFi - 2.4 GHz WiFi only has three non-overlapping channels to work with (and there’s a whole thing with the in-between channels being even worse for everyone involved than everyone just using the same correct three channels that I won’t get into), while Bluetooth slices the same spectrum into 79 fully usable channels. It also uses much lower transmission power, so signal travels a shorter distance. And unlike WiFi, it can dynamically migrate from channel to channel (in fact, it does this even without any interference). 100 people actually seeing each other’s devices might be a problem, but I don’t think that’s a realistic scenario - Bluetooth will use the lowest transmit power at which it can get a reliable link, so if everyone’s devices are only transmitting over a meter or so, there shouldn’t be any noticeable interference on the other side of the plane.
to my knowledge, Bluetooth doesn’t work with airplane mode
The radio regulations were amended about 10 years ago to allow both Bluetooth and Wifi frequencies to be used on airplanes in flight. And so cell phone manufacturers have shifted what airplane mode actually means, even to the point of some phones not even turning off Wi-Fi when airplane mode is turned on. And regardless of defaults, both wireless protocols can be activated and deactivated independently of airplane mode on most phones now.
an airplane full of 100 people all on Bluetooth might create some noise issues that would hurt the performance
I don’t think so. Bluetooth is such a low bandwidth use that it can handle many simultaneous users. It’s supposed to be a low power transmission method, in which it bursts a signal only a tiny percentage of the time, so the odds of a collision for any given signal are low, plus the protocol is designed to be robust where it handles a decent amount of interference before encountering degraded performance.
even to the point of some phones not even turning off Wi-Fi when airplane mode is turned on
I didn’t know that part (the rest yes). So much for using airplane mode to conserve battery. I suppose it’s the tower handshake that is most energy hungry in my experience.
both wireless protocols can be activated and deactivated independently
100% although my comment was in the context of people who don’t really understand Bluetooth at all.
So much for using airplane mode to conserve battery.
Your understanding is slightly off.
Airplane mode Does In Fact Turn off your CELLULAR Radio This radio is what powers your (2/3/4/5)G and LTE (This is 4G btw) connection to the cell towers.
Most international radio communications laws can prohibit the use of Cellular Radio in flight; however they often don’t prohibit the use of shorter range radio technologies such as WIFI or Bluetooth.
It’s all about ‘loudness’. Think about it. Your phone must ‘scream louder’ at a farther away cell tower than it would need to communicate with a nearby WiFi router or a Bluetooth headset.
Also, phones don’t use a lot of power to purely listen for Wifi beacons. They’re not transmitting until they actually try to join, so leaving wifi on doesn’t cost significant power unless you just happen to be near a remembered network.
Not sure why you’re saying that. I wasn’t disagreeing with any of your points, but adding to them another angle that answered the parent comment’s concerns about whether leaving wifi on for airplane mode drains battery. You addressed the cellular radio side, and I was adding a separate point about the WiFi radio that complements what you were saying.
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