umbraroze

@umbraroze@slrpnk.net

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is anyone else not feeling that patriotic for July 4?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I thought you guys don’t celebrate it that much any more? Heard it got replaced with a Trump Birthday Military Parade Day or someshit. And it sucked so much that nobody is doing holidays anymore. Sorry, I’m in Europe, the new are coming in slowly from the US these days

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨>:(⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Well elements are elements. All of them are just protons and neutrons and electrons at the end of the day. They have different properties but all of them behave by the same rules.

  But there’s some big differences between the various kinds of bodies orbiting the Sun and how they’re orbiting the Sun. Big asteroids were considered planets, until we discovered there’s a shitload of them and they’re all in roughly the same area. When it turned out Pluto is basically in the same situation and there’s a lot more of the transneptunian objects, it was pretty clear that Pluto isn’t special. If you compare it to planets it’s pretty weird. But I think it’s good that they created the dwarf planet classification because that also elevated Ceres back, hell yeah.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When you work for a company owned by a A..hole⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, that company has red flags.

  Red flag number 1: the contents of the note

  Red flag number 2: using duct tape to attach the note to the wall. Hints at a huge managerial Skill Issue.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Harbinger of the Dystopia⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  A couple of minutes in Dystopika, annnnnd…

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Chickenslap⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Is that less or more the energy of your average Falcon Punch?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨SteamWorld Dig is free on Steam for the next couple of days? Ah, go on then⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Ooohh, I liked this game when it was in Game Pass a while ago. Might as well grab the PC version.

  …it’s already in my Steam library

  …must have been on some Humble Bundle forever ago, then

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Yes, this is what people did back then⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Boot up my dad’s computer and play some shareware off the magazine cover disk I got months ago.

  Or go to the library I guess.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nexus Mods' new owners promise they won't monetise the site to death as users panic at the whiff of venture capital⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh, thank you! MO2 seems a lot more clean and simple than Vortex.

  …and in related news, now that I’m redownloading everything for funsies anyway, I have graduated from trying to keep my mod lists on a website to scribbling a list down in Joplin. With links and everything. In case these mods I’m using decide to move from Nexus or something.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nexus Mods' new owners promise they won't monetise the site to death as users panic at the whiff of venture capital⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok, so what is the current alternative nice option for SkyrimSE mods?

  Preferably one with a mod manager/download client. Vortex is kind of janky but it did the job. I’d prefer not to manage any of this stuff manually, like cavemen. it’s been decades you shouldn’t need to do that

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's an absolutely medium quality game? Not great, incredible or terrible or any single ended extreme. Dead medium quality⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Wizards of the Coast spent lots of time in meetings with Bioware to make sure every damn detail of D&D 3e was implemented according to the book. And even longer time micromanaging the campaign design. A lot of the scenarios are essentially repeats of the others - “do these four smaller thingies and then go kick the main baddie” - because getting that approved by WotC was easier.

  Why are there so few D&D games these days? Why do video game dev houses want to make their own RPG systems instead? Well, they don’t want the headache of dealing with WotC.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's an absolutely medium quality game? Not great, incredible or terrible or any single ended extreme. Dead medium quality⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Neverwinter Nights is the best PC game I’ve played, all thanks to the custom content the players made.

  Bioware made the toolset and modding support a big part of the prerelease interviews and live demos. The message to the tabletop RPG crowd was “hey, you can finally build and run your D&D modules as a real DM-led multiplayer group experience online”. Probably the only problem with that marketing was that making modules from scratch was still an involved process and making usually needed scripting skill, so maybe the TTRPG crowd didn’t end up as enthusiastic as they could. But people still ended up making boatloads of great singleplayer and multiplayer-capable adventure modules! And the multiplayer persistent worlds were essentially like MMOs but in small scale.

  I think the built-in campaign was more of a hindrance in retrospect, because if you hadn’t heard this, you probably expected another game like Baldur’s Gate 1/2. A lot of people went in thinking that the official NWN campaign was the main offering. The campaign was incredibly mediocre by Bioware standards because Wizards of the Coast was incredibly needy. They wanted high level of control, and essentially only approved a committee-built pile-of-meh plot, leaving Bioware to build something around that.

  This, by the way, led to Bioware swearing they’d not work with needy licensors anymore and ended up designing Dragon Age instead.

  (And if anyone is saying “wait, didn’t this just happen again with Baldur’s Gate 3?” Yes. Yes it did. WotC is basically impossible to work with.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's an absolutely medium quality game? Not great, incredible or terrible or any single ended extreme. Dead medium quality⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Every Halloween, I play this Xbox 360 (I think it’s also on PC now) game called Bullet Witch.

  Basically a third-person shooter with postapocalyptic supernatural horror theme. You play as a witch who shoots zombies and weird creatures with a magic machine gun broom thing. Also you get spells. Some are bloody awesome.

  This game is peak Xbox 360 to the core. The distinct memorable thing about it is that I can actually list good and bad things about it. Level design varies between meh and decent. Some of the particular setpieces are pretty awesome though. (You get to fight at an airport, and you get to do a boss fight at the top of the plane mid-flight!) Spells are fun. The mega-spells are hella fun. (Just call up lightning and watch stuff explode.) Shooting is kinda jank but it works. Jank is explained by lore. (Why is friendly fire not a thing? Well, you see, this is a magic machine gun broom thing, so bullets dodge the civilians and allies by ~magic~.) Enemy designs are nothing to write home about at first glance, but are actually kinda memorable. (You first meet up the zombies and hey, they’re talking zombies. With military helmets and guns. Like, what? You don’t see this every day.) There are some things that seem just not very well designed, like there’s these gigantic enemies that serve as minibosses and they’re a lot less scary when you note the AI is probably bugged and they often just decide to stand at place for a while and eat a lot of bullets.

  I got this thing in the bargain bin. It’s a zombie shooty game that’s perfect for Halloween so that’s what I use it for. That’s all it does. That’s all I could ask it for. And it’s fine at it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A game you "didn't know it was bad 'til people told you so"?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The first Call of Duty game I played was Ghosts, and it may have coloured my perception of what the series is about. Bombastic popcorn munching action that goes in one ear and straight out of the other. I was like “eeeeh it’s okay”. After playing some older ones I was like “well I’m sure it was groundbreaking at the time”. (Hm. Did I ever finish MW2? And I think I put Black Ops 2 on hold after the first mission. Loved Advanced Warfare tho!)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The grass is happy to see you ⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ooh, don’t make me link to That One CGP Grey/Kurtzgesagt Thing. Well I might as well do it. Existential Crisis One! Existential Crisis Two!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The grass is happy to see you ⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  True, the plant as a whole doesn’t die.

  But this particular slice of grass on the microscope slide?

  Dead.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The grass is happy to see you ⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Of course this gets a lot more grim when you realise the grass had to be sliced to put under the microscope.

  So they sliced a smiling organism and captured the expression at the moment of death.

  I know I’m supposed to be strong, but I’m shedding tears. 😢

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨But but but⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  As a young nerd, I was happy that the national broadcaster decided to show history documentaries every week.

  I was kind of disappointed that it devolved into a World War 2 Hour. But I guess it was inevitable.

  (At least we don’t have the History Channel, otherwise known as the H—)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨IT’S THE FEDS!⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There definitely have been a case where the police, observing things with thermal cameras from a helicopter (for it is in the US where this tale happened), observed some house with a highly suspicious heat signature. …Some dude’s crypto mining operation.

  Well, that was definitely indirectly drug related.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Techno feudalism, here we come⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve found them useful for very broad level stuff (e.g. asking “I’m trying to do X in programming language Y, are there any libraries for that and can you give me an example”). Copilot has been good at giving me broad guesses at why my stuff isn’t working.

  But you have to be very careful with any code they spit out. And they sometimes suggest some really stupid stuff. (Don’t know how to set up a C/C++ build environment for some library on Windows? Don’t worry, the AI is even more confused than you are.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨negative rizz⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I wanted one!

  …In Forza Horizon.

  Real life, not so much. There’s a bus stop right by the street

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Speak American⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  At this point point, people who speak English as second language usually go “awww, how cute, the native speakers really think this is the biggest controversy of English orthography.”

  (Instead of, you know, everything.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨GeoGuessr Map Makers Make Most Popular Maps Unplayable In Protest Of Saudi-Backed Esports World Cup - Aftermath⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Farming Simulator has an esport. Microsoft Excel has an esport. At this point it’d be weird if Geoguessr didn’t have an esport.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨$80 for Borderlands 4 too costly? Randy Pitchford says, "If you're a real fan, you'll find a way to make it happen"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, Randy, I find a way to make it happen, it’s called Xbox sale. That’s how I bought Borderlands 3. Which I haven’t played yet. And don’t get me wrong, Randy, Borderlands 2 is one of the most fun games I’ve played, I’m definitely a real fan! I’m definitely a video game enthusiast, I have a ginormous backlog on both Xbox and Steam.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨And sir cumference, the sphere⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Sir Cumference the sphere

  Oh yes, and the monastery near Camelot also a nearly spherical oblate

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nintendo reserves the right to brick your console following "unauthorised use", in bid to prevent piracy⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s it, I’m going to get a Steam Deck next. And I’ll stick to stuff that can run Dolphin.

  (Learns that Xbox Series can also run Dolphin without modding) Well shit, I’m set for life

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The clueless people are out there among us⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  And in the big touristy cities in Europe, there’s so many scam currency exchanges, while if you just take the time to go to official government exchanges, you get reasonable exchange rates. The problem isn’t the locals, the problem is that you didn’t do the research and you did a dum-dum. (Also fuck the people who are scamming tourists, that’s just low.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is your favorite indie game?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Can’t really add much to all of the great games already mentioned. But I’ll add one, because it was one of the best games I played in recent memory. Chants of Sennaar. Where to even start? Point-and-click adventure/puzzle game that is all about language puzzles. With great visuals and music. Really dig the eurocomics inspired style. I don’t know why, but this game really touched me - maybe it’s because the game is about uniting people in an age of discord.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Game prices have nothing to do with inflation (or even production costs) and everything to do with arbitrary price points the industry just settles upon. Nothing forces them to charge that much, yet they do it because they think they can get away with it for now.

  Rising prices have had an effect on me - I’m definitely not buying as many games as I used to, least of all impulsively on hearsay, and I’m not trusting any publisher enough to preorder stuff anymore. So they went past my pain point, sorry. If they keep doing this, they’ll run over everybody. I don’t think this is a sustainable direction.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Liquid Trees⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Insert random copypasta about biotech breakthrough that turns water and CO2 and nutrients into building materials which sounds like space age technology but it’s just trees

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Don't be Evil⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Parody account

  …Basically indistinguishable from any regular Twitter account. Why did Elon want these accounts labeled, again?