with no user benefits for this extra complexity,
This is not true. One of the benefits I’ve enjoyed greatly is being able to point a group of non-techies at a URL and have them up and running, with fully encrypted channels, in less than 5 minutes. Another benefit is chat history across multiple devices. There are more.
with only a single entity […] being in charge
Also not true. It’s an open protocol with a well-defined process for contributions. The original authors certainly have influence, but I haven’t seen any gatekeeping there.
of developing both the client and the server.
There is no single client or server. There are multiple clients and servers (with varying levels of resource usage) from multiple developers, and the available options continue to expand.
I’ll grant that XMPP is a simpler protocol, especially in its minimal form without the various XEPs that are needed to even approach a comparison, but it also doesn’t accomplish as much. That’s not a “red flag” for Matrix. Also, this article is specifically about a new protocol.
I am happy to self-host XMPP accounts for a few hundred people, family and friends and to no longer have to do it with Matrix.
Yes, your case is an example of a small community with an informed and involved admin, which I pointed out in my original comment. XMPP can make sense there (I’ve done it too) but it’s a niche within a niche. It doesn’t address the problems that Matrix solves.
Should I presume Mazda and others that are not listed are doinga good job?
Doubtful. Absence from a list like this usually just means that the people investigating had limited resources, and therefore chose a representative sample instead of doing an exhaustive survey.
If this report gets much attention, it would be a good opportunity for any car makers that do well on privacy (if they exist) to start boldly advertising it.
XMPP can be done mostly well, but achieving that is relatively complicated, and free, reliable, public servers likely to stay around for long are few and far between. It has proven too much of a pain for mass adoption without a large sponsor, and those are all gone now. It’s not bad for small communities, though, if they have someone well-versed in all the important XEPs to maintain the server and help people with the clients.
Matrix is IMHO far better suited to general purpose and large scale messaging. The unprotected metadata is pretty minor, easily avoided if you have a need, and as I recall, on their to-do list. (Also, this article is about a new standard protocol, so criticizing the old one seems a bit off-topic.)
I second shapis’s recommendation. I was still gaming on an Ivy Bridge CPU until recently. It wasn’t until this year that games started giving me trouble at 1080p with medium settings, and that was mostly GPU related.
Your 16GB RAM might be fine for now. Most games I’ve played don’t come close to that. Of course, it’s easy enough to check while you’re playing (or doing whatever other tasks you do).
Depending on your OS, your SATA SSD might even be fine. (Although NVMe prices have been and still seem to be dropping, so picking one up in a couple months isn’t a bad idea if your motherboard can handle one.)
This might be the firmware dump:
Texture block compression exists, and some of the available algorithms have fairly little impact on rendered visuals.
As you noted, asset scaling also exists in various forms, from mip mapping to audio codecs to alternate asset packs. Imagery intended for 4k and 8k displays is wasteful for people gaming in 1080p, let alone 720p.
The techniques required to cut down on bloat are well known. Some games just aren’t using them, or aren’t using them effectively. There’s definitely room for improvement here.
how little goes into optimizing that since “space is cheap”
More and more developers seem to assume everyone else can afford what they consider to be cheap, and feel entitled to gobble up all the resources on other people’s systems as if they aren’t needed for anything else.
And speaking of environmental costs, there’s also the pollution and e-waste generated by constantly pushing people to upgrade their hardware instead of optimizing the software.
As a developer myself, I find it embarrassing and sad.
mage hand requiring a short rest to resummon might be because you are using the gith racial?
Nope. Wizard and bard cantrips.
Since you mention it, though, I think the Gith’s psionic Mage Hand is a cantrip in 5e. Did it require a rest in some past edition?
Feather fall now is a ritual spell so you can cast it before combat and it will last all of combat. It’s just different from the tabletop game.
I’ll have to try that; thanks. It would still be an annoying extra step and wouldn’t cover surprise situations as the spell is intended, but would at least be more useful than it seemed.
In any case, it’s not just those two examples. The point is that a surprising number of little things like these are broken, either by departing from D&D rules in ways that don’t make sense or by just plain failing to do what their in-game descriptions say.
I have found one example of departing from 5e rules in a way that does make sense, though, so it’s not all bad.
A couple minor broken ability examples: Mage Hand requires a short rest to recharge, which is fundamentally wrong for a cantrip, and Feather Fall is a bonus action instead of a reaction, making it useless for its primary purpose. These aren’t game-breaking, of course, but annoyances like this add up, and it never feels good to have chosen an ability that turns out not to work as it should.
One of the more problematic issues is stupid pathing logic, especially around known hazards: Party members absolutely love to spot traps, announce them, and then walk right into them. Sometimes it results in someone getting a minor injury. Other times it nearly wipes out the whole party.
I suggest saving often.
this is a very minor detail that was featured in prelaunch marketing and went heavily viral
It is a mistake to assume just because you have encountered something that everyone else has as well. Not everyone follows viral media. Some of us actively avoid it.
And yes, this was indeed a spoiler for me. I would rather it had been a surprise in-game.
Swen said that they had to pay Hasbro to use D&D and that Hasbro didn’t provide them with any funding.
I don’t think the precludes Hasbro from marketing the game. It might be interesting to see what promotional stuff they have had a hand in. At the very least, it’s on the digital games page of the official D&D site.
It has been a while since I played Divinity: Original Sin 2, and I’m still in Act 1 of BG3, but from memory:
D:OS2 has fewer bugs and better performance. This isn’t surprising, of course, since it has had more time for polish.
From what I’ve seen so far, BG3 has:
- More balanced battle mechanics. In particular, battles aren’t dominated by excessive surface/cloud effects or telekinetic barrel drops, and I haven’t yet had a fight where I felt unfairly disadvantaged by my party lacking one specific ability.
- Far fewer instances of the targeting UI lying to me and causing frustration in battle.
- More world to explore.
- Richer lore, as told through books and journals all over the world. It reminds me a bit of Elder Scrolls in this respect.
- More interesting writing. (This might be subjective, but I would be surprised if most people disagreed.)
- More character depth.
- More immersive voice acting. (For example, the voice actors almost always understand the context of their lines. They often didn’t in D:OS 2, which I found distracting.)
- Better character animation (outside of cut scenes, some of which are a bit awkward).
The gameplay is indeed similar, of course, as it’s the same kind of game, from the same studio, using a revision of the same engine. But this one is IMHO better in almost every respect, and I think I’m more likely to play it again when I’m done.
i am somewhat suspicious that people think Baldur’s gate is some novel masterpiece
Novel? Not really, except maybe to people who haven’t played its predecessor, or good BioWare games, or D&D. More like an improvement on what came before it.
when really it’s that Divinity is super under rated
Where in the world have you seen D:OS2 underrated? I sure haven’t.
and relatively unknown by comparison.
Well, yes, that’s to be expected. D:OS2 didn’t have half a century of role playing game history or Hasbro’s marketing budget behind it.
- ono to
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And will surely be on F-Droid when it’s ready, just as their previous apps have been.