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STEAM | September 2014 - Nice thread. Btw, Bayonetta 2 is out next month.

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Z

Zafir

Member
hardcastlemccormick said:
It's not just aesthetics when the OS suddenly uses two major UI paradigms at the same time, switching between them with no discernible pattern. Users might learn the behavior or configure it away, but there's criticism to be had that goes far beyond "waaah change" in nuance.

For example, Windows 7 had one or two points of entry for any given task, Windows 8 has double that and half of those avenues can only give you 60% of the computer's overall capability.
Click to expand...

But considering you can just do tweaks to make it more like Windows 7. By upgrading and doing that you can have the best of both worlds.

I don't regret upgrading to Windows 8 at all. Faster and I've still managed to get the old start menu back(which is the change I hated the most).
 
P

PandaPedinte

Member
Chairmanchuck said:
IIRC Namco-Bandai once said its totally easy to make nude mods for DoA, thats why it isnt on PC. But thats already a few years ago when they said it.

The reason I guess is: "PC? What is that?"
Click to expand...

Lol, because the characters clothes are not revealing at all. Also didn't one of tge DoA games had a nude hack for consoles?
 
H

hardcastlemccormick

Banned
Zafir said:
But considering you can just do tweaks to make it more like Windows 7. By upgrading and doing that you can have the best of both worlds.

I don't regret upgrading to Windows 8 at all. Faster and I've still managed to get the old start menu back(which is the change I hated the most).
Click to expand...

Like I said, you can configure the system or learn the (poorly designed) UI behavior but that doesn't invalidate the criticism.

EDIT: Note that I've done UI design professionally before, so I'm speaking from more of an abstract point of view. When it comes to Windows, I use Steam/Origin/GOG almost exclusively.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
fantomena said:
Or it's all opinions, taste and subjective.

I upgraded from Win 7 to Win 8 with the cheap upgrade program I bought. I used it for some weeks/motnhs, then I did go back to Win 7 because it did not work well for me.

Now i own a laptop that uses Win 8.1, better than the release version, but I still don't like it.
Click to expand...

Never use an upgrade utility for a new OS, always reformat.

hardcastlemccormick said:
It's not just aesthetics when the OS suddenly uses two major UI paradigms at the same time, switching between them with no discernible pattern. Users might learn the behavior or configure it away, but there's criticism to be had that goes far beyond "waaah change" in nuance.

For example, Windows 7 had one or two points of entry for any given task, Windows 8 has double that and half of those avenues can only give you 60% of the computer's overall capability.
Click to expand...

I can agree with that, there are arguments to be made for using Microsoft's default programs, such as the PDF reader, that sends you to a different window.

I just don't use any of the default programs, but you already accounted for that discussion.

To be fair, I rarely see this aspect criticized on GAF. When you generally see complaints about Windows 8, it falls into the form I described earlier.
 
jshackles

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Turfster said:
It's technically yesterday's bundle, so if someone wants it, better get on it quickly.
Click to expand...

Damn I guess I'm out of the loop. Well that's kind of good news considering there should be a new bundle from them today. :)
 
Z

Zafir

Member
hardcastlemccormick said:
Like I said, you can configure the system or learn the (poorly designed) UI behavior but that doesn't invalidate the criticism.

EDIT: Note that I've done UI design professionally before, so I'm speaking from more of an abstract point of view. When it comes to Windows, I use Steam/Origin/GOG almost exclusively.
Click to expand...
Well yeah but it's not like the design came out of no where. They were aiming at making it so both tablets and PC's alike can use the OS with ease.

Edit: To add my post was also referring to the 60% capability too. I can do everything I could on Windows 7.
 
H

hardcastlemccormick

Banned
Grief.exe said:
To be fair, I rarely see this aspect criticized on GAF. When you generally see complaints about Windows 8, it falls into the form I described earlier.
Click to expand...

This is likely because GAF doesn't have that many people capable of articulating what's wrong (in their view) with an operating system's user interface.

It's similar to how I can express my opinion on how comfortable a car is to drive, but I can't be very specific about why. Good, quality criticism is hard when you get into specialized details, but that doesn't mean layman's opinions are worthless.

jshackles said:
Damn I guess I'm out of the loop. Well that's kind of good news considering there should be a new bundle from them today. :)
Click to expand...

I really hope Bundle Stars has a good one coming up this week. Every once in a while they drop a hell of a bundle, in between these sorts of bottom-rung combo packs.

Zafir said:
Well yeah but it's not like the design came out of no where. They were aiming at making it so both tablets and PC's alike can use the OS with ease.

Edit: To add my post was also referring to the 60% capability too. I can do everything I could on Windows 7.
Click to expand...

Intent is not the same as execution. In many ways, it's irrelevant.
 
D

Deitus

Member
Zafir said:
But considering you can just do tweaks to make it more like Windows 7. By upgrading and doing that you can have the best of both worlds.

I don't regret upgrading to Windows 8 at all. Faster and I've still managed to get the old start menu back(which is the change I hated the most).
Click to expand...

This is true, but it's not exactly high praise of the Windows 8 UI that you modded it to go back to the old one.

The OS is great, it's the UI I have issues with. And even if I can (with some work and possibly 3rd party modifications) completely avoid ever interacting with the UI changes in Windows 8, doesn't make the fact that they made several poor UI decisions any less so.
 
H

hardcastlemccormick

Banned
Zafir said:
Edit: To add my post was also referring to the 60% capability too. I can do everything I could on Windows 7.
Click to expand...

I never said anything to the contrary, and I believe you misunderstood my example. I was talking about the way the user finds actions or solutions on their computer. If a user wants to find a program, system setting or shortcut, there's a lot more ways to find that in Windows 8 (which is good), but not all of them will present you with every option (which is confusing and messy).

Zafir said:
But intent influences execution.
Click to expand...

Obviously. But it's not really relevant to criticism.
 
D

Durante

Member
Grief.exe said:
I feel that Windows 8 complaints are mainly steeped in, 'I don't like change.'
Click to expand...
All methods of Windows 8 program/setting launching are still inferior to Windows 7 Start menu textual search. Simply because the latter smartly unifies application and control panel search into a single, incredibly fast and unobtrusive UI.


Grief.exe said:
The OS still works essentially the exact same way, but the aesthetics took a massive shift.
Click to expand...
Shit. You mean shit, not shift.
 
G

GaussTek

Member
I've used Windows 8 for almost two years now, and -to be fair- I've had some annoying issues, but most of them were after the 8.1 updgrade last year (which BTW, took way too damn long to install, I though I was going to need to cancel it and reformat my PC lol).

Aside from the driver issues, I had some problems like external hard drives auto-sleeping, and memory issues while gaming.

Sure, those were patched recently, but never heard of Win 7 people having those kinds of trouble, and MS sometimes takes waaaay to long to track down the bugs.

Another annoying issue is that some old Win games don't run properly on Win 8.1. One example is my old copy of Midtown Madness 2 (yeah A MICROSOFT game). Even with the latest patches/updates, it just runs so slow that it's unplayable. I think it has something to do with the way the OS handles DirectDraw now. Because of the compatibility issues , I decided to install a Win 7 VM, which I use for old games (and they work perfectly).

Anyway, don't get me wrong, I don't hate it. It mostly works fine and it's fast. I don't hate the Metro UI either, as I've even bought some games from the Windows Store, and they work/look fine. BUT, it's obvious to me that MS is still beta testing and preparing for the next major release (Win 9), same as they did with Vista. Hopefully upgrading to Win 9 won't be a pain in the ass and that will be cheap enough for current Win 8 users.
 
H

hardcastlemccormick

Banned
To make up for the heavy amount of off-topic posts I made on the last page:

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Super House of Dead Ninjas -- MB-5798A4BE6E745C94 - Taken by Chairmanchuck
Click to expand...
 
F

freshVeggie

Member
lashman said:
thanks man ... I really do appreciate it. Sadly, I really don't think there's anything you can do .... or anyone else, for that matter.
as for the second part of your post - well, clients really don't seem to think so ... or else I'd be drowning in work (or at least have ANY :/ ehhh)
Click to expand...
You know, I strongly consider making a thread where people would post their work field, education, experience etc. in a short form, with the intention of possible clients (other users, maybe even lurkers) who may employ those then.
With so many threads, niche ones too, I am curious how such a thread doesn't already exist.
--
Turfster said:
It's technically yesterday's bundle, so if someone wants it, better get on it quickly.
Click to expand...
Apparently the bundle stays even after a new one comes each day, only thing, there will be price increases. 5 days left for that bundle at the start price.
UYppX7D.png
 
M

milena87

Member
Chairmanchuck said:
If that were true, yes. But I cant seem to find any information that its just skins.
Click to expand...

There were some posts in this thread about this. I'm not sure who mentioned it first, I'd need to check it again.

edit: I found this site, but it's in italian. They confirm that the AMD code isn't giving the game.

I'll check for some english sources as well.

edit 2: ok, found something: Caution: The fine print, does say additional fees may apply. It seems the Star Citizen part will only be the racer and (maybe) the Arena Commander and Murray Cup Race Series modules, NOT the full game.
 
Z

Zafir

Member
hardcastlemccormick said:
I never said anything to the contrary, and I believe you misunderstood my example. I was talking about the way the user finds actions on the computer. If a user wants to find a program, system setting or shortcut, there's a lot more ways to find that in Windows 8, and not all of them will present you with every option. That's poor design.



Obviously. But it's not really relevant to criticism.
Click to expand...
Well yes, but even in the former example you can config it to fix it. It's still a criticism to the UI initially, sure, though I believe there's a deeper issue which I'll cover in my next paragraph. However, it was more I don't think it's a good criticism to not use the OS since you can fix it. If you were arguing the former then fair enough. Most people seem to disregard the entire OS because of things which can easily be fixed, which is kind of why I answered from the latter angle.

Moving onto the second point. I don't think the execution did fail at the intent specifically. The start menu seems perfect for touch screens, as well as the metro app layouts, and how all of the settings are done. Now where I think it failed was that they didn't add enough configuration for PC users. So you have this issue where the UI was clearly designed for tablets and just doesn't really work as well for the PC. It does OK, but far from perfect. Consequently I think it's less of a UI issue, more of a Microsoft were too lazy to tweak it enough for the PC.
 
lashman

lashman

Steam-GAF's Official Ambassador to Gaming-GAF
freshVeggie said:
You know, I strongly consider making a thread where people would post their work field, education, experience etc. in a short form, with the intention of possible clients (other users, maybe even lurkers) who may employ those then.
With so many threads, niche ones too, I am curious how such a thread doesn't already exist.
Click to expand...

I really don't think it's something that should be discussed on gaf ... but maybe it's just me
 
M

MMBosstones86

Member
Chairmanchuck said:
If that were true, yes. But I cant seem to find any information that its just skins.
Click to expand...

http://www.techpowerup.com/204795/amd-never-settle-space-edition-rewards-program-goes-live.html

AMD announced the latest addition to its Never Settle rewards program, which rewards gamers with free games for purchasing new AMD Radeon graphics cards. Never Settle Space Edition, as its name might suggest, adds four space-themed games to choose from, including Alien: Isolation, Star Citizen (an in-game AMD Radeon themed ship), Space Run, and Habitat. The four add to the 27 games you can choose from as your Radeon Rewards, depending on the card you buy.
Click to expand...

http://hexus.net/gaming/news/pc/736...ce-edition-adds-alien-isolation-star-citizen/

Looking at the other games in the bundle, Star Citizen has earned several headlines thanks to its record breaking fundraising and PC gamer enthusiasm for this Chris Roberts project. However in the AMD Never Settle Space Edition some small print suggests that the Star Citizen part of the bundle will not be a full copy of the game but an exclusive 'Mustang Omega Racer AMD edition' and perhaps the Arena Commander and Murray Cup Race Series modules. Hopefully this game or game-addon confusion will be cleared up soon.
Click to expand...
 
A

Amzin

Member
GaussTek said:
I've used Windows 8 for almost two years now, and -to be fair- I've had some annoying issues, but most of them were after the 8.1 updgrade last year (which BTW, took way too damn long to install, I though I was going to need to cancel it and reformat my PC lol).

Aside from the driver issues, I had some problems like external hard drives auto-sleeping, and memory issues while gaming.

Sure, those were patched recently, but never heard of Win 7 people having those kinds of trouble, and MS sometimes takes waaaay to long to track down the bugs.

Another annoying issue is that some old Win games don't run properly on Win 8.1. One example is my old copy of Midtown Madness 2 (yeah A MICROSOFT game). Even with the latest patches/updates, it just runs so slow that it's unplayable. I think it has something to do with the way the OS handles DirectDraw now. Because of the compatibility issues , I decided to install a Win 7 VM, which I use for old games (and they work perfectly).

Anyway, don't get me wrong, I don't hate it. It mostly works fine and it's fast. I don't hate the Metro UI either, as I've even bought some games from the Windows Store, and they work/look fine. BUT, it's obvious to me that MS is still beta testing and preparing for the next major release (Win 9), same as they did with Vista. Hopefully upgrading to Win 9 won't be a pain in the ass and that will be cheap enough for current Win 8 users.
Click to expand...

It's actually a lot of similar issues to Windows Vista launch. Windows 7 was largely the patched, refined version of Vista, and I expect Windows 9 to be the patched, refined version of 8. I like 8 plenty well, but driver/hardware/software issues abound much like Vista had for a long time. Add that to the dramatic new interface and people throw a fit, obviously.

I've been using Windows since 3.1 (back when you had to manually boot into it from DoS, didn't even know we HAD Windows on the PC for a while). I think Vista is still the only version I've avoided, every other edition I've grabbed and thoroughly enjoyed the improvements. I waited a few months to upgrade my gaming PC to 8 to let things stabilize and haven't gone back, nor do I have any reason to.
 
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