One of us, one of us. I did the same only 2-3 hours into my first ever Linux install.

Get Mozilla Firefox and add uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and Ghostery plugins.

For over the top action, but a Raspberry Pi with an ethernet port and install PiHole and change your router DNS to the IP address of the PiHole and bask in glory that 99.999% of the crap out there, will not come or go out of your household.

I will start. I want to see a game that mashes factory building with either FPS or RTS, where one or more players create a supply chain inside a zone/factory and the other one or more players utilise the ammo, weapons, vehicle etc.

Factorio without bitters. The music of desolance, alone on the planet trying to get efficient so you can leave and go home. I don't know why it is so relaxing, but it is... just having time to plan and build exactly what you had in mind is bliss.

On the other hand if you want some adrenaline, play bitters in deathworld.

That's an amazing jump and congratulations on doing it.

The first ever game of harvest moon was on the switch last year. I repaid the debt by fishing and collecting shells as I couldn't figure out how to dig as I couldn't obtain a pickaxe to finish my first ever quest. After 6+ hours of foraging around the staeting area, I realised that if you sleep, the quest progresses and you get the pickaxe...... Yea!

I like the wishes of the creators saying they want to be used for good causes, but we all know the true case of these types of machines, military, which is exactly what gundam is.

Saw couple of friends playing it and thought to give it a try... But oh boy... 45 hours in less than 2 weeks.

Send someone can say that I'm enjoying it.

Ditched Windows late last year and jump to Linux as my main driver. I've had Linux servers for years but it is completely different when it's your main driver.

I mainly play games and from the over 100 games that I tried to play only 2 had issues and I was unable to get them working (BattleField 4 and FaF Forever).

Honestly Wine and subsequently Proton is the true game changer when it comes to games BUT I'm on an all AMD hardware and had 0 issues with driver stability, however a friend of mine on an Intel/nVidia has had a couple of issues which were eventually resolved but took a bit of wait for fixes and updates.

I am someone that is a Microsoft professional by trade and have been for about 20 years. I have absorbed everything that Microsoft has ever done in the Windows, Server and Cloud ecosystems, but Windows 11 was what really broke this lovely glass dream.

Under Windows 10, I was ale to create a custom image and use advanced policies to block the crap, Windows 11 on the other hand you can still do the same but with every update, it reverts settings back to their "default" without notification or even recorded information.

I would say to anyone that has the "but Windows is better for gaming..." you are living in the 00s to early 10s! With the Wine program and Valves Proton program, I am able to run all games that I own (1000+ games... I am a Valve sales bundle addict alright?!?). I am able to play games such as Star Citizen, Planetside 2, PalWorld, Helldivers 2 with a few clicks of a button, and only a couple of clicks if the game is Proton gold or above.

From my testing on several distros I would say start with something friendly such as Mint Cinnamon or PopOS (linux die hards, remember not everyone wants to spend time figuring things out on a daily basis and these OS from my experience are the most Windows-esque - i mean I started with Garuda and I am stubborn to learn it instead of jumping to another distro). Then spend a bit of time just getting the basics of a Linux system of your choice, such as the file system and how to install packages (apps). Don't forget you also have platforms such as YouTube that people will show you click for click on what to do!

But... yes there is a but.... if you have an nVidia GPU your experience might not be as smooth. If you want to take a leap and have the best experience, have at least an AMD GPU and even better an AMD system. Unfortunately this is purely on nVidia still having their finger up their ass on open source drivers.

Arrival. Since I became multi-lingual and many years before I saw the film, I always thought of language as a data transfer that it is becoming more and more compressed to improve speed and accuracy.

Going blind into the film and the story unfolding in front of my eyes, to basically show me my inner thoughts, it was a truly euphoric and exhilarating moment in my life.

I would recommend something just outside your area but with a lot of fun movement mechanics.

Warframe It's an online/instanced 3rd person shoot em up but the movement is the best out there. PvE focused but there are PvP elements too. Very good and long progression but it is grindy.

Titanfall 2 The campaign is single player but one of the best told stories. The movement is just behind Warframe. The online multiplayer is absolutely epic as you get to take out Titans and also call down your own. However, there is quite a lot of cheaters unfortunately which may spoil your experience.

Closer to your request.

Orcs Must Die Fun tower defence with traps and 3rd person action.

Deep Rock Galactic Mining space dwarfs and beer. That is all you need to know.

Gunfire Reborn Roguelike FPS with lota of characters and abilities. The aim is to kill the final boss and then try to do it faster and faster.

Got more if you want to know more, but that will be a very good start.

For me are mystery and clue games such as Myst and 7th Guest. The scenery and thought of adventure that these titles used to bring as very rare and although Goragoa was quite recent, it was far too short.

So erm... I read your paragraph on Wondersong and thought, "that sounds amazing, I must get". Go to the game page "this game is already in your library"...... Fine fine, I'll get on with my backlog.

I have been using uBlock for a long time, but since I've pair it with PiHole in my house at least, there have been no ads, even on my TV. I highly recommend people do this for their house by getting a RaspberryPi or an old PC with Linux to sit on their network, it has some setup and learning curve, but once you deploy it, you don't have to fiddle with it, apart from updating it once a month.

Windows 11 was the straw that broke the camel's back for me as an MS specialist with 20+ years of experience.

Under Windows 10, making a golden image was all you needed to make sure that malware (yes some MS services share the same traits as malware!), bloatware and telemetry were not active, even on major updates (a couple of exceptions but overall that was the case)

Windows 11 no matter what you do, on a major update it will reset to Microsoft's "recommend" settings even wiping out task scheduler scripts and reg entries. That is malware behaviour and should be treated as such.

Honestly, I know I will sound like a broken record but if you have any value on your privacy, get on Linux. There are distros out there that are very friendly but remember with anything new, there is a learning curve and the steepness is based on how willing you are to learn, don't be afraid.

As someone who still does LAN weekends with a few friends a couple of times a year, this is a hard one especially if you have 6+ players, however here are my suggestions.

Supreme Commander using the FAF Client - huge scale RTS with up to 16 people in a single map (8v8).

Left4Dead Versus - 8 people go 4v4 so two teams in your case. Dedicated server recommend.

Unreal Tournament 2005/3 - lots of games modes and supports a lot of people but you may need a dedicated server.

Gary's Mod PropHunt, Bomberman etc - Great sandbox game - can be a bit junky to setup up but excellent if you get it right

Blur - racing game which may be hard to find as it is not being sold anywhere but an excellent multiplayer one

Factorio - way slower pace than any games mentioned, but if you play Deathworld is an adrenaline rush and fun coop. Up to 500 people so 15-16 people is no sweat. Also good for long term goals for continuing play.

Human Fall Flat - funny physics puzzle game up to 4 people. Great for competition as you can make it 4 teams of 4 and have a leaderboard.

Planetside 2 - FPSMMO - epic battles and still very active

That's a lot of typing already - let me know if you want more suggestions - happy gaming

I only have a stability issue with a single game and it is one I gave an example on my op, Satisfactory but that is since the latest update so I'll eat and see before I say it's something to do with the OS.

I think that is inevitable, and we will see one in the best future.

I am currently playing my first save on vanilla with a few QoL mods but looking at the mods list there is a lot more amazing content to be had. I think I am going to enjoy this game for sometime.

Thank you for your suggestion. I've looked at this and it is really very close to what I was thinking.

I bought it and I will play it this weekend.

I got 5k hours in WoW up to Cataclysm and 10k+ how in FFXIV (beta tester from 1.0). I think the story telling of WoW up to WoTLK, was told amazingly well and it had a strong point, but BC was even better. Things rapidly declined from Cataclysm and this is why I never got back, whereas I've stuck with FFXIV for 13 years.

I finally got the time to sit and play on my car sim ( Assetto Corsa / competezione) after more than a year. For the first fewsessions, I forgot how to take corners but now I'm back into it and it is an amazing feeling when you nail a race from start to finish.

It definitely has gotten a lot better in the nVidia driver side but it's not on AMD levels yet. But this is my experience with a 960 and 3080Ti. My 6800XT and 5700XT have been smooth sailing.

That is utter bull. That is directly saying that we want to make more money for less work! Also have in mind that they will fuck us over as soon as physical copies are gone as they will have no reason to reduce the price if there is no second hand market. And if you think they will keep reducing games to 80%, you need to have better dreams. Look at Nintendo, most games still at their MSRP, and there are physical copies that are literally 1/8 of that MSRP price on the second hand market.

In think you are looking for dash dash world on Steam.

That does sound like a lot of fun.

For your #1 point, have you heard of Palia? It got released last month and it is a chill have where you gather and build your house. Additionally you can explore ruins to uncover your origins.

I will play the crap out of that as I love all three games mentioned.

After contemplating for 3-4 years about switching my main rig to Linux, I did it on Friday just gone.

Note for the below, I have a full AMD system.

• I went with Garuda Dragonized distro as it is gaming focused and has all the game related stuff included.
• took me less than 30mins going from gaming on Win11 to Linux, but I did the research before.
• there are a few tweaks if you use Steam but you have Lutris to help you.
• of the 35 ish games installed, all of them work without issues, but they need updating once you enable compatibility to Proton.
• the default theme is too flashy but you can select to bring it down a few notches

Technical

• if you have secondary SSD or HDD, dedicated to games or files like I did, it is advisable to have them backed up to an external drive as you will need to re-partition them from NTFS to use them properly in Linux
• with Garuda Dragonized Gaming, all drivers are installed but follow the Wizard at the beginning and check all that apply to you. It will save you time.

Good luck and looking forward to having you on Linux!

Than you for the suggestions and I'll look into them.

Thank you for the suggestions. I'll def be looking at new flavour of distros as my knowledge of Linux expands. Garuda was just the first one that made me jump.

That's the first distro that caught my eye for gaming. I'll def be looking for other distros in the future, so thank you for the suggestion.

Bought the game when it came to Steam a couple of years back and put 100 or so hours and uninstalled it feeling that it needs way more content.

Re-installed last week just because without reading the latest update news and boy oh boy was I genuinely surprised to see the combat and new QoS stuff been added. Highly recommend to anyone that has enjoyed Factories and/satisfactory. The build is somewhere in between both.

One of my favourite artists and an amazing track.

Not on my PC but I will update later.

I do enjoy a challenge and having to use cli is what got me into my profession. I did my research and found Arch to be one of the better distros out there, but I didn't want to start at the deep end as I don't have time like to fully delve into it like I used to.

I'm already thinking of Nobara....

It is a noob answer, but I set the compatibility to the latest Proton 8.0.4 and after an update and verification I was able to launch to the launcher, sign in and play. I don't think I changed anything else. Maybe something that is installed with the distro that enables it to work?

Being in a AMD ecosystem, serms to be a lot smoother transition than nVidia from what I've seen.

I'm an early adopter of VR and there have been 2 memorable VR moments, the first time playing Elite Dangerous in VR with HOSAS and HL:A. But HL:A is the only VR game that I play through a couple of times a year.