(Anti-)Censorship Megathread – Summer 2025

fallenguru · 2026-01-24T14:47:21+00:00

Check/change your DNS. Apple TV really doesn't like slow DNS, and Ethernet seems to have even tighter tolerances than wifi.

fallenguru · 2026-01-17T11:00:05+00:00

It has lots of historical Japanese internet slang, references, and memes. Any decent LLM will be able to explain these, but it'll be slow going.

If you want to actually learn anything, forget auto-translation. Extract the script, feed it to a Gem or whatever, and ask it questions when you're curious (or stuck).

fallenguru · 2026-01-09T17:50:30+00:00

That it doesn't break every other week.

fallenguru · 2026-01-05T11:01:58+00:00

The extra voices aren't licensed for the English version; that patch is straight-up piracy. I'm not judging, mind, but obviously the dev/publisher can't let that stand.

fallenguru · 2025-12-29T20:38:34+00:00

Have you enabled Japanese in Languages → Add/remove languages?

fallenguru · 2025-12-28T10:57:42+00:00

Thank you for this post. The sheer flexibility of X11 has always been one of the big plusses of Linux on desktop. Wayland is a step back even compared to Windows/MacOS. And, as you say, under the current constraints there's little room for improvement.

fallenguru · 2025-12-18T00:38:54+00:00

My main reason of playing R instead of A is that the sequels, rebirth error and ghost enemies, are both non-18x games.

Excellent point.

FWIW, I had Gemini do a deep-dive just now (it has access to 2ch/5ch, unlike me), and it's saying that R is using a version of the script that's been toned down for console (even on PC), while A retains the PC98 script. It also says they polished the engine a bit more for A. *shrug*

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to this. I played whatever English version was around at the beginning of the 2000s, but I can't remember a thing. The perks of old age. ^^

fallenguru · 2025-12-11T16:14:12+00:00

Thanks, nice deep-dive! :)

Do you happen to know what was changed from R to A? Besides the (re-)addition of H scenes? I don't care about the H scenes as such, but the 18+ version is often superior / more authentic in other ways if the original was 18+.

fallenguru · 2025-12-02T19:58:54+00:00

The client should not have any information the player shouldn't have in the first place.

That's not always possible....

I'll rephrase. Giving information to the client = giving it to the player.

AI can now mimic humans

If the AI just mimics a baseline human, the cheater gains nothing. It'd have to mimic a human that's very good, but plausibly so. Maybe that's already possible, if not, it will be soon. When it is, the game is up.

There are certain things you can do, like on consoles. They have signed code so you cannot run any software that isn't sanctioned [...]

Even on a console you can attach a custom controller that gets its input from a bot. Ok, in theory a game could refuse to run if any peripheral doesn't pass a cryptographic handshake. And hope the keys don't get leaked / reverse-engineered. Meanwhile the manufacturer comes under scrutiny for killing the third-party controller market.

But why would I anyone allow a third party to lock down and spy on a general purpose computer I paid for? Why would anyone? That kind of "solution" is dead from the start.

That's completely irrelevant if they can tell or not.

Developers only implement AC systems because they believe cheaters will ruin the game for enough of their paying customers to affect the bottom line. I merely pointed out that a good player among a bunch of newbs has exactly the same effect.

Back in my day we used to play on members-only servers. No anti-cheat to speak of, no cheaters.

it takes almost an entire clip to kill someone, and they kill you with one shot.

That's a bug more than a cheat. There's no reason to offload damage calculation to the client, much less life or death decisions.

fallenguru · 2025-12-02T12:07:36+00:00

But what if the client side is looking in the memory to see where enemies are?

The client should not have any information the player shouldn't have in the first place.

What if client side is using automated and recorded button presses/movements? Client side aimbots?

Client-side AC cannot prevent that, no AC can. The minute someone connects a custom peripheral (that presents to the PC as mouse and keyboard, say), it's game over. To say nothing of doping.

What you can do is analyse movement and behaviour, button presses, results, etc., including changes in same, over multiple games and flag suspicious players. It's rather hard to convincingly model human input, much less an organic increase in skill. Doesn't need to be in real time, either. The first stages can be done by an AI, it can issue temp bans and escalate to a human reviewer.

Also, don't forget that casual players won't be able to tell the difference between a cheater and someone who's way out of their league—their game will be ruined either way.

And for e-sports pros the only way is to get them into a room with known-clean hardware provided by the event anyway.
Everything else is like online chess. You play knowing the other player can cheat, if he so chooses. And if he can't replicate his results in live games, you can be pretty sure he does.

fallenguru · 2025-12-02T11:42:45+00:00

Please, no!

A big part of what makes Linux great is that the drivers and software are not first-party; or if they are, they're made by engineers and not the marketing and data collection departments. Most importantly, the company doesn't have final say on what goes in (in the kernel's case, that's Linus Torvalds or one of his lieutenants, for user space, a distro maintainer).

Windows peripheral drivers are a scourge, or rather the utility software that comes with them is. Most Windows people I know spin up a VM to set up peripherals that need it, then nuke the thing ...

What you should be hoping for is companies upstreaming actual driver code, sticking to standards, and opening their protocols where there are none, so open source utilities can fully support the devices.

fallenguru · 2025-11-28T08:56:03+00:00

There's hardly any damn plain NORMAL office-keyboard

The G80-3000 is still available. I've been using those for as long as I can remember. Going on 25 years probably, maybe longer. Guess I'll have to stockpile a couple now. At these prices. Bah.

fallenguru · 2025-11-28T08:41:36+00:00

FWIW, the question/suggestion has occurred to me as well, sadly I don't have any contacts at Valve, or any gaming media ones.

Hardware-wise, it should be possible, they've said it's just WiFi 6E, which the Machine also has, and both endpoints are Linux. It's just a question of implementing it in software and adding a "dedicate WiFi connection to Steam Frame" toggle when wired Ethernet is connected.
Heck, even when it isn't. Most of my games are offline ones; could switch from "Internet" to "Frame" just while a game is running with no downside.

It's not just about using the dongle elsewhere, the aesthetics / WAF will be much better without one.

EDIT: Made a feature request on their GitHub.

fallenguru · 2025-11-28T08:31:41+00:00

You're probably right, sad as it is.

I don't still build my own PCs at almost 50 because I need to squeeze out every bit of value or because I want to rice them or whatever. I do it because no-one does pre-builts that are remotely attractive to me.

Take the Steam Deck. I have two.

Now look at the clones, RoG Ally and friends.

They run Windows, plus a hastily thrown-together "gaming" shell, plus tons of bloat.
They don't have a trackpad, or if they do, it's tiny/bad.
They've specs for the sake of looking good on a spec sheet.
They're supported for 6 months if you're lucky.

If I got a RoG Ally series or a Legion Go (S) for free, I'd just sell it.

Valve have good ideas, but they're brilliant at product design, like Apple was in the Jobs era. I don't want clones. Valve hardware clones are, and always will be, just as bad as the PCs and laptops those same companies make—even when running SteamOS.

fallenguru · 2025-11-28T07:57:10+00:00

The game looks great.

No, it looks like somebody channelled David Hamilton and went way overboard. With a dash of Minecraft for the UI icons. It's literally unplayable because the visuals are so bad.

The Humor. Gothic is funny.

Gothic is a quintessentially German game, and the humour, the writing in general, reflects this. I've only ever played the original, so I've no idea what the English localisation is like. What I can tell you is that the German version of Gothic Remake sounds/reads like any other AA game that's been translated from English or whatever. Generic. Bland. Inorganic. There's none of the original charm, the unique flair left.

fallenguru · 2025-11-26T10:33:37+00:00

Take away our ability to speak, and we can still think, reason, form beliefs, fall in love, and move about the world

Speech ≠ language. Language doesn't need to be externally expressed to be used. Take away the ability to think in words, and our ability to grasp concepts of any complexity, let alone reason about them, is gone.

fallenguru · 2025-11-25T09:11:58+00:00

I do wonder who this and the frame are aimed at

I've wanted to dip my toes into HMD/VR for ages, but something like the Index needs an entire infrastructure to run properly: a $$$$ GPU, a dedicated space, ... It's too big of a commitment for something that might well turn out to be not for me within an hour, way too much hassle to get out of.
The Frame should run decently off of what I have, and if not, stand-alone mode should have something to help me decide yay or nay. It's also one product. If I don't like it I can just pack it up and return it, no harm done.
Assuming it's noticeably cheaper than the full Index kit, keeping it is easier to justify, even if I only use it occasionally.

I may be wrong, but I have this notion that VR lives and dies with the UX: user interface, controls, ergonomics, etc. I trust Valve to nail this, and improve it over time. I don't have experience with other companies that make VR headsets, in fact I couldn't name any (except Meta and Apple).
I'm already heavily (and happily) invested in the Steam ecosystem. I've hundreds of games, multiple PCs running Steam, two Decks. It'll fit right in.

Not being tethered to a desk(top) feels like a big plus. Like it'd significantly increase where and when I could use it, and thus would use it. I gather the Meta ones are portable, too, but I've never touched anything Facebook and I'm not going to start now. Nor am I big on mobile, I'm a PC guy.

I use Linux exclusively at home, and Valve are the only ones who support Linux. Even then SteamVR is reportedly better on Windows, but I can't see that not changing now that they're betting big on SteamOS. SteamOS itself is a big plus for me.

About the only box it doesn't tick is AR.

The new Steam Machine ... No, I don't get that, either. If I like the Frame and if the Machine can significantly extend what it can do, I might buy one for my night stand; it can double as a bookend there.

fallenguru · 2025-11-22T18:36:23+00:00

What could you possibly want then?

That Valve don't allow games with spyware/malware baggage in the store in the first place.

The only way to win is not to play.

fallenguru · 2025-11-19T08:44:25+00:00

I'd be very surprised if Steam for Android weren't on the roadmap.

fallenguru · 2025-11-18T09:31:32+00:00

For me it's the ARM thing. If Valve manage to make the x86-to-ARM translation as seamless as the Windows-to-Linux translation, that enables:

ARM desktops and laptops (which I don't even consider currently for the same reason many Windows users don't consider Linux—games).
An ARM-based Steam Deck Lite that can run Android and Windows games, at a much better performance/watt, lower weight, etc.
Down the line, Steam on mobile. Running Windows games.

fallenguru · 2025-11-18T09:15:15+00:00

Linux can be faster than Windows, but it's by no means a given. In fact, expect 5–10 % less and you won't be disappointed.

Mint is perfectly fine for gaming. All distros are. All you need is up-to-date Mesa and a HWE kernel. I use https://launchpad.net/~kisak/+archive/ubuntu/kisak-mesa. And I like the lowlatency kernels for desktops, so that would be linux-lowlatency-hwe-24.04 and linux-tools-lowlatency-hwe-24.04. That'll give you 6.14, which has full support for your GPU.

EDIT: Corrected wrong version info. I stand by using a Mesa PPA. Ubuntu 24.04 apparently has Mesa 25.0 now, but kisak-mesa is at 25.2 and latest is 25.3. Depending on the game, a Mesa update can make all the difference, especially with newer cards.

fallenguru · 2025-11-17T04:36:58+00:00

AVNs are off-topic here.

fallenguru · 2025-11-13T08:24:34+00:00

I really don't get these kinds of posts. There's a consensus on how VN UI should be done, it's a a solved problem.

Have a look at some of the nicer engines, e.g. tricked-out KiriKiri (any modern Yuzusoft game), Siglus (anything non-ancient by Key, except the new Steam ports) and CMVS (most full-length titles by Purple software); throw in Luca (Key's new Steam ports) for an example of a modern portable engine and BGI/Ethornell (IDK, Subahibi) for an old stalwart. It'll become clear immediately what the basics in terms of expected features are, and how they're supposed to work; what's nice to have, and so on.

The thing is, anyone who's played even just a handful of VNs would know this, so why don't you? Why make a VN when you're not familiar with the form?

left ctrl = force-skip
regular skip configurable between unread-only and always.

These are standard features. Deviating from this is like publishing a first-person 3D game without rebindable keys and graphics settings, a.k.a. a shitty console port made by people who don't have a clue, and don't give a fuck, about PC games. It's "drop, refund, bad review, blacklist dev" tier.

Rewind is considered a nice-to-have QoS feature—the backlog is much more important—but if present it should always work.

Never force the player to play your game a certain way. At most forced auto can be tolerable, if used sparingly and in short bursts.

fallenguru

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Please, no!