They also sold 5 million copies in 3 days, and who knows how many copies since then. They can afford to pay good IP lawyers for a long time, if needed.

Right, but Steam still let’s people who own delisted games download and play them forever. (Well, assuming they’re not live service games with no servers, but that’s not a Valve problem.)

I have a slightly different perspective as someone just starting Rise as my first ever experience with this series.

Holy shit, the tutorials are terrible. Massive info dump walls of text explaining too many systems at once, cryptic warning messages to confirm you want to dismiss the tutorials are extra confusing… And despite the massive info dumping, they don’t even tell you everything you need to know to complete the tutorial missions as you complete them. When you go to trap your first monster, there’s no tooltip to teach you how to use items in the “how to trap” explanation or NPC dialogue. I needed to google it.

And no ability to pause in a singleplayer game? I googled some explanation about pause being on one of the menus, but I couldn’t find it. Thankfully, suspending the game on a Steam Deck pauses it, so it’s playable.

Also, why was I given massively OP equipment and piles of loot just for logging in? The entire early game is now so easy that it’s not fun. I’m only 3 tutorials + 1 “real” mission into the game, so I’m going to try starting over without the EZ-mode loot and give it a second chance, but so far, I’m not impressed.

If I’d bought this through Steam, I’d have refunded it already before the 2-hour playtime window closed.

TL;DR: Terrible new-player onboarding has me questioning if I should push through.

I haven’t been following PoE2 very closely, but I hope it plays well on Steam Deck. If it plays well, then I’m going to play the hell out of this…

I just looked it up and I already own it from the Itch.io Bundle for Ukraine. I should play it sometime! Also on sale on GOG rn at a historical low price DRM-free.

It seems like the Archive.org .zip dump’s “size” is just 12580366816. I assume that’s bytes, which is only 12½ GB. That seems way too small to include all the romhacks, doesn’t it? I thought a lot created assets and HD textures and such. But that also seems like way too much to just be website data, and most hacks are tiny files.

Does anyone know what’s in that data dump? I’m tempted to download everything, even though I’d only ever use a miniscule percentage of it.

The cynic in me is wondering if this is just Google trying to get around the movement to stop children from being given addiction machines* before they’re ready for them. (*Smart phones with infinite-content-stream “social-media” apps)

There’s a push to ban smart phones for students below age 16 at schools (and educating parents to try to get them to just give their children dumb phones until age 16 outside of school hours, too.)

But maybe that’s just me being cynical. This movement only started gaining steam after The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt was published earlier this year, afaik, and Google is hardly an agile company anymore…

I had completely forgotten about the quest mode and tetronimo ball mode.

I’ve long-ago lost (or sold, maybe?) all my original DS stuff, but it’s nice how cheap and easy it is to buy a used DSi/DS Lite and then get a flash cart or soft mod. I should pull it out and play it again. Highly recommended as a console; the DS has lots of timeless games.

I pay whatever is needed to get the features I need, within reason. My current phone was ~$500 CAD (XPeria 10 V). It was the only narrow phone with good battery life at a reasonable price with 8 GB RAM at the time.

Out of curiosity, why do you need so much storage on mobile? Massive music library in FLAC or something?

I am totally content with 128GB. It’s enough that I’ll never run out of space for my usage. (Well, aside from photos, but those get backed up in full-resolution to Amazon Photos as part of my Prime subscription).

Granted, most of my media consumption is ebooks, which are tiny.

The actual analysis itself makes it clear that the research specifically on cell phone bans is lacking. In particular, of the 1317 studies, only 22 were relevant, more than half of which were Master Degree research projects, not peer-reviewed studies. It’s fair that the evidence for cell phone bans in schools is inconclusive, but that’s because there isn’t enough quality reach yet to draw conclusions.

I was actually referring above to studies on cell phones in general for task success, non-specific to schools.

You’re missing the point entirely, I think.

If you want to learn about the research, Jonathan Haidt’s book includes links to studies on the effects of cell phones. I don’t have time to find the sources for you right now, but you can look there if you want to learn more.

Smart phones in pockets being a problem is supported by robust psychology research. People do the worst at tasks when phones are on the desk in front of them, worse when phones are in their pockets, and best when phones are left in another room even if the devices are turned off, in all cases. It’s even worse if phones are on even without any sort of notification, like vibration. (And, obviously, notifications make things increasingly terrible.)

The research is not at all unclear or anecdotal; it is very strong. Phones are damaging to attention, task completion, and learning. This is established; the only disagreement is to the degree of the effect.

Re: phones in “class”, I think we’re misunderstanding each other due to terminology. Here, “a class” means a single instruction period. I thought you were for banning use during instruction time, but against phones being fully banned at school, but if you mean “class” to be the entire time from first bell to last bell, then we’re in agreement. No smart phones at all during school hours would be a good step.

Hopefully, that might also make parents more aware of the damage smart phones are causing and support a societal move away from giving youth addiction machines.

I’m certified to teach in my jurisdiction. I have a teaching degree, and I have completed additional professional training specific to this topic through conferences, books, and other professional development (PD).

I can’t source conference talks or teacher PD groups, so I sourced a popular press book that’s approachable to laymen.

A dumb phone can do that without the damage caused by smart phones.

You seem to care about this, but just FYI that it’s well studied at this point that having a smart phone at all during school hours is a problem.

It’s not about cyber bullying. Having a smart phone in their pocket is damaging. Children should have dumb phones exclusively until age 16.

Outside of class time sounds good, but it really means that students become fixated on checking all their notifications between classes. This is an experience blocker. Instead of engaging with their peers or teachers, they’re screen zombies caught in addictive dark patterns, generating anxiety constantly all day.

I’ve plugged it already in this thread, but The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt explains this really well , and he brings receipts.

Also, dumb phones are fine. SMS and phone calls aren’t a problem, it’s smart phones that are addiction machines.

As an educator and parent, I couldn’t disagree more strongly. Smart phones are addiction machines and childhood experience blockers. Children should not have smart phones at all until age 16. Age 16 would be a very appropriate time to introduce smart phones after their harms have been explained in detail at ages 12 through 15.

Banning cell phones during instructional time doesn’t go far enough. Students having a smart phone in their pocket is damaging. (Dumb phones are fine—SMS texting and phone calls are great.)

There has been a precipitous decline in youth mental health globally in nations where cell phones were affordable starting in 2010. The evidence is clear. Smart phones (and, more broadly, addictive dark patterns in all apps/games) are a big problem.

If you want to learn more, read the first chapter of The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. (I’d recommend the full book if you want details, but chapter 1 is enough to give you a grounding in the data and the broad strokes of the argument.)

I played Superhot first on the Deck. Since time only moves (much) when you’re moving, you have lots of time to practice aiming and getting used to track pads/stick + gyro controls. It requires precise aiming, and there are occasional times where speed helps, so it was a good “training” game for me.

It’s still not as natural as KB+mouse, but I’ve been enjoying Ziggurat 2 a lot (on normal difficulty). I won’t push into hard modes, like I would on PC, but it’s working well for me.

Yeah, fair. It’s frustrating when prices fluctuate; I’m lucky that we don’t have many “must have” items on our shipping lists, and I’m very price sensitive, so I just don’t buy things that are expensive. And I only used to go to Superstore at most weekly, so I’d never have noticed daily fluctuations.