I’ve been using the Zelotes C-10 (wired for my desktop) and F-17 (wireless for work laptop), when they say vertical, they mean it. Anecdotally, it has helped with my wrist pains. I also wanted the extra buttons on the C-10, so I could map them for gaming (I also use a Razer Tartarus for my left hand for gaming).
I used a Nexus (nxstek.com) for years and it still worked great, only replaced it when I switched to a vertical mouse for wrist ergo, now my wife still uses, and it’s the mouse that’s lasted her the longest (she’s hard as fuck on mice for some reason). I’d suggest you check out the SM-8000B from them.
For public ones, depending on what people started getting, it’d really strain the AIs. You could go in like 1 or two ways, probably different people getting both.
Something very uniform but still unique, like a QR code kind of deal, AIs would hallucinate the crap out of that. Or abstractions, like people do to change the way the shape of their face to combat facial recognition.
For private ones, just don’t ever get it photographed, any image showing that area without it would be probably fake.
I am waiting for people to start getting both public and hidden authentication tattoos, so they can prove generative images aren’t actually them.
For something I’m paying for, I want no ads, recommended or otherwise.
For something I get for free, if it’s easily skippable/ignorable, I don’t really care, I’ll skip it or mute the tab or whatever. If I can’t, I’d rather have a like sniper level targeted ad (use all the data!), really try to show me something I’ll care about (there was some like 10 minutes ad about the science behing glass by one of the guys from MythBusters, I watched the whole ad, it was great). The demographic level targeted ads are my 2nd least favorite, mostly because it feels like I usually need to suffer through what is a targeted ad but if they bothered to exclude some of the audience based on some data points (looking at you luxury car ads, it’s just never going to happen), they’d know I’m a bad target, I’d rather some generic add over those. My least favorite ad though, when I get an ad in a language I don’t even understand, like at least match my primary language, wasting everyone’s time…
While that’s part of it, it’s definitely not “just” that.
Sadly, part of it is that the game has released in a fairly stable/polished state, which is considered a positive in the world of broken releases. The multiplayer also just works with little issue as opposed to some problems of yesteryear.
There’s also a perhaps surprising pent up demand for good co-op PvE focused games. They blow-up hard but tend to fade out depending on gameplay quality. Part of this is the streamer effect, streamers like to play group games with other streamers because it helps cross-pollinate their audiences. Sales are also improved due to group/peer-pressure, if someone can pull in their friend group, that’s a lot of sale multiplication.
I also think that the developers tried to make a game that’s fun. A lot of decisions seem to have followed the rule of cool for this type of game e.g. pal mounts, firearms, catching people, automation of survival elements via slavery.
It also manages to have both a clear and guided progression system while maintaining the freedom for the player to just fuck off and do whatever they want while still at least partially progressing.
My only honest gripes with the game are how world saves are handled (they should use the Grounded system in addition to having dedicated servers) and that I for some reason can’t find the exit button on the title screen so to quit I need to alt-f4, for the rare times I need it.
Back in my teens one summer, I was playing Resident Evil Code Veronica by day at my friend’s house and Doom 3 alone in my basement at night, got about halfway through both but quit because of the constant nightmares. Lost to the psychological damage I guess.
To quote my best friend, “If I’m going to spend hours staring at an ass, it might as well be a girl’s ass.”
The point the other person is trying to make is that if a person wants to watch something, but the price is higher than they value or can afford for the experience they will not pay the price, so the company will not profit. If the person then pirates the content to view it, the company has lost nothing additional.
However, one could also make the argument that the viewer having the ability to pirate lowers what they are willing to pay, thus the company does lose some amount of profit in aggregate over time. This though is not necessarily true for those who lack the means to pay, rather than just the willingness.
Ultimately for people who do have the means, piracy is a symptom more of a service issue rather than a price issue. People generally will follow the path of least resistance to acquire what they desire. For most people a small payment and easy access will lead them not to pirate, but as prices rise, content fractures and UIs enshitify, the aggregate effort crosses the line and they start to withdraw and turn to other methods.
Everyone has their own willingness to pay for things on the demand curve, if companies pick an optimal price, they maximize profits, and aren’t harmed by people who cannot or will not pay that price utilizing a non-consumable resource without payment.
I still default to Hanlon’s Razor.
From Wikipedia, Mediatonic created the international remake of it, which presumably included some kind of licensing fee from the original developer, which this tweet implies is at least partially based on number of sales. Seems like someone involved in contractual obligations at Epic dropped the ball on at least this game.
The proprietary/cloud based threat bit me already. Installed smart vents in my home several years ago. They weren’t perfect, but they did really help even out my 3-bedroom, 2-story, 1-zone home. Now the app fails to login, the site doesn’t even attempt password recovery and I’m back to dumb vents… Customer support is a black hole and basically every product is and has been out of stock for years, so I’ve no hope of any happy resolution.
They apparently used to be supported by SmartThings when it allowed custom stuff, but that’s dead now too because Samsung didn’t want to allow it. I even tried to use their proprietary hub which said it could connect to them, but that shit didn’t work either.
Grocery stores are actually a bit more sinister than that, they reorganize things periodically so people have to spend more time walking around the store and can impulse buy more. They are getting wiser though, they tend to do it more sectionally rather than the whole store so people don’t get as fed up.
Stormlight Archive could be turned into such a good Dynasty Warriors style game.
Story-mode is literally just playing differing characters in each of the fights of the story, you could do at least 10-12 fights.
Campaign mode could be picking one of the 10 warcamps, each with different starting strengths, and racing, done via a base building / management interspersed with combat levels, to claim the most wealth.
We’re this ever to become a thing, seems like everyone could just upload images of a public figure and circumvent it.
What about Splinter Cell? Generally well regarded and though they got more actiony, the first few were very Stealth focused.
Another contender, though you’d have to self-impose stealth, Deus Ex series, you can stealth your way through like every game.
Does Factorio count? It’s a good game, you can play multiplayer, the factory can always grow (at least until your hardware, or in the extreme the software, can no longer handle it) and if you’re grinding for something rather than automating it, you’re doing it wrong.