Hiker, software engineer (primarily C++, Java, and Python), Minecraft modder, hunter (of the Hunt Showdown variety), biker, adoptive Akronite, and general doer of assorted things.

  • 0 Posts
  • 217 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: August 10th, 2023

help-circle
  • People blame the sunsetting decision, but most people stuck around. Honestly I don’t think the stuff they sunset was all that good. The original planet designs were feeling tired. They have brought missions back as well… But it’s been too long since I played to remember exactly how they brought them back.

    The actual issue in my mind is they’ve decided making things hard means giving it a lot of health and make it take almost all of yours in one hit. So the only things that are viable are people’s cracked builds.

    Basically without a full team of good shooter players, even easy mode dungeons are out of reach. Things just do so much damage and have so much health, it’s just not fun. Everything feels like a slog unless you go look up a cracked build someone made.

    Actually, not everything feels like a slog. The content that doesn’t, everything just dies without any challenge.

    So the options to play are roughly:

    • comically easy
    • this will take forever
    • this will take forever + 1 and hit like a truck
    • this will take forever + 2 and you instantly die

    With some content having only the last 3 options.

    They added some new enemy types recently, but it just hasn’t been enough to really make the game feel refreshed. Like, Remnant II showed how to do this well, different enemies, different ways that they attack you, different ways to ideally kill the enemy (i.e. lots of weak spot variety), lots of different attacks for the bosses (and death is a matter of avoiding the attacks not being in a 12 hour fight), every bullet takes a significant chunk of their health bar, etc

    The locations have also felt a bit underwhelming, but that would be okay if the fights felt challenging and rewarding … not just like various reskins of the same enemies with either no or way too much health.



  • Brighter Shores! It’s a new game by Andrew Gower on his new game engine (just came out last month).

    It’s a point and click game similar to RuneScape that’s mostly a second screen game. It’s in early access and a lot will probably change in the coming months based on feedback (they’ve already confirmed they’re rethinking some of their combat design and adding action queuing).

    Unlike RuneScape it’s been designed out of the gate to provide people with a way to engage without sinking a ton of time. You can do fully offline training in this game, so you can be gaining XP while you sleep.

    The game runs like a dream, has a very well done sound track, tastefully simplistic graphics, and just generally is a cozy/feel good MMO with light humor and puns.

    No micro transactions, generous amount of free to play content, and a $6/mo subscription for all content.




  • I mean, fishing is more comparable to mining in RS2, there are other skills (typically refinement oriented skills) that have more down time between clicks.

    Combat I definitely feel needs refinement. Though, I actually do like the fact that combat is not “I have a bow and I’m shooting something 1 tile in front of me and/or safe spotting.”

    The skills are only trained in one area, but they have interactions across areas. You use resources gathered in the forest in town and in the mines. The weapons you make in the mines can be tuned to any other location (etc…)

    Andrew does a pretty decent job of explaining the thought process here if you’re interested: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2791440/view/4442331835939160237

    A lot of this is to solve the long time MMO issue of “new content is released but it’s only for high level players and long time layers in general have a ton of advantages in the new area.”


  • You should try Brighter Shores.

    The original RuneScape developers and owners (i.e. Andrew Gower and his brothers) are back with a new game, at a new company, with an industry shattering $5.99/mo subscription price for all content.

    No micro transactions, no pay to win, no outrageous DLC pricing, no bull shit … just a fun game with many similarities to OSRS but also modernizations, formula improvements, and lessons learned.





  • Re: harder to change, your electoral logic is already self-defeatjng. What do you think you are changing when your electoral logic is, “fall in line vite blue no matter who” including fucking genocide. Who would ever take you seriously? You think they’re going to do anything to “win your vote”? Genocide apologist, they know they already have it. You announced you were giving it to them free of charge, that you will tolerate anything they do and still vote for them, and are actually pressuring others to do the same on their behalf.

    The correct time to express such thoughts is during a primary. We didn’t have one because we had an incumbent; it happens.

    The better place to have this fight is through congress anyways. They’re the ones that actually approve the aid.

    Better yet, go talk to the Israel people and get them to vote for someone that stops using our weapons in such an offensive manor. Israel knows that their position is critical to the US interest and their current leaders are happy to exploit that.

    Literally, abstaining makes you part of the “party of not voting” and nobody does anything for them, because they don’t vote.


  • We are literally in a battle for our ability to vote.

    Abstaining from said battle is effectively saying “I don’t care” and letting Trump do what he will. If he chooses to send nukes to Palestine to end the conflict immediately, that’s on everyone that abstained. If he ends aid to Ukraine and those people die, that’s on everyone that abstained.

    If he ends voting, you “won some moral battle” but you’ve all but permanently lost the war against genocide as the most powerful military and weapons on the planet are now in the hands of an authoritarian, raciest, fascist, regime that previously imposed a “Muslim ban” and I’m sure would happily do so again.

    There is no hypocrisy here, and it’s disingenuous to imply there is.

    If you want to protest genocide, then GO DO IT, don’t throw away a vote because that’s not a protest, it’s a pathetic excuse.







  • I recommend against hosting a password manager yourself.

    The main reason is self hosted systems require maintenance to patch vulnerabilities. While it’s true that you won’t be on the main list if e.g. bitwarden gets hacked, your data could still be obtained or ransomed by a scripted attack looking for e.g. vulnerable VaultWarden servers (or even just vulnerable servers in general).

    Using professional hosting means just that, professional hosting with people who’s full time job is running those systems and keeping people that aren’t supposed to be there out.

    Plus, you always have the encryption of the binary blob itself to fall back on (which if you’ve got a good password is a serious barrier to entry that buys you a lot of time). Additionally vaults are encrypted with symmetric crypto which is not vulnerable to quantum computing, so even in that case your data is reasonably safe… And mixed in with a lot of other data that’s likely higher priority to target.