teawrecks
@teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
- Comment on He escaped 6 days ago:
…lol I’m trying to decide if you’re informing me that kites predate video games, but also I find it hard to believe that you didn’t know what a kite was until you played video games.
- Comment on This woman has nothing better to do 6 days ago:
Yeah, an actual lawyer would know the first amendment isn’t relevant between private parties, on private property.
- Comment on This woman has nothing better to do 6 days ago:
Easy for a non-manager, outside of Kansas, with prior context of the customer’s interaction with Lily, with hindsight to say.
Owner or not, she has Burger King lawyers to answer to, not to mention the MAGA community of her town, and she was working with partial information; she didn’t know what had actually been said to the employee, she didn’t know what had actually been captured on video in response, and yet she had to respond on the spot.
The manager handled it with the patience of a saint, and she was accurate: the policy is for employees to not be rude to customers, to not tolerate customers being rude to employees, and not to record on private property. She then asked the customer to leave.
I’m confident watching it back, the manager would have done everything differently, but it’s one of those moments you have one shot at, and she did fine.
- Comment on He escaped 6 days ago:
He literally used video game kiting strats to pull him away from the bike so he had enough time to sprint to it and mount it.
- Comment on BlizzCon 2026 Announcements Summary 2 weeks ago:
I don’t think retail was a misstep when it comes to milking whales, it’s just not a compelling MMO. So to them, it’s remained a massive success.
I’m also curious about WoW: Forever, mostly because I’ve been hopeful that any studio would see the hype around classic wow and realize there is demand for the old format of MMOs; back before all modern conveniences were added to remove any friction between players. I’ve longed for an experience akin to vanilla, but completely new and unsolved and populated by people who just want to experience organic player interaction.
- Comment on Palworld lead worries Steam early access has "lost its meaning": players treat it like "a normal game" and the program has been "abused for a lot of reasons" 3 weeks ago:
I can’t believe Valheim just left EA. It’s literally been over 5 years!
- Comment on KytyPS5 (PS5 Emulator) can now run GTA V at 60fps for few minutes before crashing 3 weeks ago:
But why does that make a difference? Regardless of whether you reverse engineer an API or have the full documentation available, when you translate from it to something else, you’re building the same thing: an API translator. It doesn’t change whether it’s an emulator.
Traditionally, “emulator” refers to hardware emulation. APIs are reverse engineered, mocked, translated, etc. all the time, but we don’t call it “emulation”.
Even simply mimicking the behavior of a unified virtual memory space is not called “emulation”, unless there are hardware-specific quirks that need to be emulated (which may very well be the case for PS5 caches, I don’t know).
- Comment on KytyPS5 (PS5 Emulator) can now run GTA V at 60fps for few minutes before crashing 3 weeks ago:
Ah I see. So what makes kytyps5 an emulator given that proton is emphatically not an emulator?
- Comment on KytyPS5 (PS5 Emulator) can now run GTA V at 60fps for few minutes before crashing 3 weeks ago:
I’m trying to understand, what is being emulated?
- Comment on KytyPS5 (PS5 Emulator) can now run GTA V at 60fps for few minutes before crashing 3 weeks ago:
Ok, so if it’s translating to a reverse engineered API, it’s emulation. But if it uses the proprietary documentation and does the same exact translation it…wouldn’t be emulation anymore? What part are we saying is being emulated again?
- Comment on KytyPS5 (PS5 Emulator) can now run GTA V at 60fps for few minutes before crashing 3 weeks ago:
Isn’t Proton solving the same problem though?
- Comment on Ontario, Canada 🇨🇦 banned bike lanes and speed cameras. Now their neighborhood streets are turning into a lawless free-for-all 3 weeks ago:
Claiming that the removal of a brand new surveillance technology is the cause for an untenable surge in traffic violations is crazy. How did we survive until now?
- Comment on Panic passes Trump tariff refunds back to the Playdate customers who paid them 5 weeks ago:
Is there an easy to browse website that just lists all the companies that did/didn’t pay back the tariffs? That would be handy.
- Comment on Behold, "the whole story of Steam's economy in one picture": the top 1% of games earn 84.5% of estimated revenue, and most games barely make anything 1 month ago:
Thanks, I knew I was forgetting yet another name for it. Lots of names for the same, very common underlying phenomenon. As it applies to this case, Pareto would be “80% of the value earned by 20% of the games”. But point being: it would be weird if that wasn’t the distribution we saw.
- Comment on Behold, "the whole story of Steam's economy in one picture": the top 1% of games earn 84.5% of estimated revenue, and most games barely make anything 1 month ago:
It would be weird if it didn’t follow a power law distribution.
Aka the Pareto Principle. Aka “80% of everything is shit”.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
I’m imagining you pulling your head out of your microwave just long enough to type these responses.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
Found absolutely nothing about the narrative to be confusing and I’m not even sure how that would be possible.
I mean, they did have two story lines that take place in parallel with one another, and affect one another. So it’s not like a standard linear timeline, I could see how someone spreading their play sessions out over many weeks or months could lose track of things. But I thought it worked well.
Joel was a piece of shit who deserved to die, it’s that simple
I don’t think that was the intended takeaway, nor would I ever dare to say “it’s that simple” about any character’s motives in this story. The entire point of a trolley problem is that it’s an ethical dilemma without a clear “right” answer.
At the beginning of TLOU2, Ellie clearly also felt like Joel was a piece of shit liar/murderer…but then learns she’s capable of being the exact same person under the right circumstances. If anything, I see the moral of the story as “it’s never simple once it’s you”.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
I really enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn, but Forbidden West felt like a less polished slog. I did eventually finish it, and it did have some rad moments, but where in the first game I did every quest and followed every line of dialogue, in the second game it felt like they purposely threw in far more dialogue than I could ever care to listen to. In order to not loath the experience, I found myself skipping a bunch of content that seemed like a huge waste of time.
- Comment on Saber CEO scorns writer who says she was fired in favor of AI with confusing, combative statement 1 month ago:
Let me clarify that the entire story script, were it to win an award, would go to someone who can walk up on stage and receive it.
That’s sooooo not the question
- Comment on Nintendo says users voluntarily paid higher prices, have no right to tariff refunds | Nintendo says Switch buyers got what they paid for, urges court to dismiss lawsuit. 2 months ago:
They’re literally arguing that it’s the customer’s responsibility to stop giving them money.
- Comment on Nvidia finally reveals what controls devs actually have for DLSS 5, and don't worry folks, there are TWO main sliders to control the AI filter 2 months ago:
More like, as a rendering engineer, we’ve been dealing with vendor black boxes forever. It always sucks having control over our frame taken away, and then having to advocate for hardware level access to be able to do it ourselves so that actual innovation can happen. But DLSS isn’t new, and it isn’t defining our frame. Only end users who literally know nothing about what they’re talking about think this.
I don’t even know why I try. Sure, AI bad, art dead, all I play is AAA.
- Comment on Nvidia finally reveals what controls devs actually have for DLSS 5, and don't worry folks, there are TWO main sliders to control the AI filter 2 months ago:
This is embarrassingly poor journalism. It’s clear the author has a slider with Facts on the left, and Pandering on the right, and they’ve cranked it all the way to pandering.
They define “tone” as
lighting and, well, overall tone.
Clearly not familiar with the concept of high/low frequency details.
And I blame gamers, including the people in this thread. It reminds me of how conservatives label objective journalism as biased, so right wing news outlets just describe whatever reality the audience already lives in.
They’re strength sliders. It’s not like the entire frame is defined by DLSS. The artists make thousands of decisions when rendering the frame, and use DLSS’ sliders to determine how much interference is happening on high/low detail features. Most likely this tuning is going to be dynamically adjusted at runtime based on what lighting phenomena are in the scene, so it’s not even like an artist is going to be hand tuning these. That’s not what they’re for.
The more I think about the comparison to right wing news the more apt it feels. The topic is very technical, and their audience is…well, a bunch of gamers. It’s not like they’re going to be able to convey useful info, but they still need to say something, because their audience has heard the term “DLSS 5” and expects something. So all they do is regurgitate useless pandering.
- Comment on LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent 2 months ago:
Right, I’m saying Dell doesn’t make displays. Generally LG makes the displays that Dell uses, but apparently they also use Samsung and AU Optronics. But even then, I believe there’s some Chinese middle-man OEM actually making the displays, and in certain countries (including the US) Dell buys those and slaps their Dell and Alienware branding on them.
It makes sense to recommend an LG/Samsung/AUO monitor, it doesn’t make sense to generally recommend all Dell or Alienware monitors. Maybe a specific product worked well for you, but you can’t broad statements about all their monitors because the only thing they have in common is the brand selling them.
- Comment on LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent 2 months ago:
it puts me off ever buying or recommending an Alienware monitor
Why would anyone recommend an Alienware monitor? They don’t make displays. You’re just recommending which branding the display has.
- Comment on LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent 2 months ago:
It might be, if they hadn’t already agreed to it in the windows ToS, and/or in the LG ToS.
- Comment on Closed game studio returns to un-live service its game with community servers before shutdown: 'We don't believe Deceive Inc. should quietly disappear' 2 months ago:
I’m very deliberate about my choice of words. So it’s irritating when someone argues against a fuzzy misinterpretation of what I said, causing me to have to repeat myself. So instead, I think in done here. Cheers.
- Comment on Closed game studio returns to un-live service its game with community servers before shutdown: 'We don't believe Deceive Inc. should quietly disappear' 2 months ago:
It’s going to be far easier to get up and running and playing the game by connecting to official servers. But it will sure be nice have to a safety net.
It’s nice to have in the worst case, I agree. My only point in all of this is for you to agree that there are reasons beyond greed to centralize servers. It’s not always that they want to be the next Fortnite. There are practical budgetary and gameplay reasons to prioritize central servers. One does not simply ship a binary to the public and forget about it. It’s a whole product they need to support and test along with every update.
I think devs get more information about what their players actually want if they look at how many people choose the unintended experience over the intended one…The only reason the unintended experience is a detriment to them is because they see it as a threat to their business model.
Again, I disagree with this cynical take. Games worth playing are art, and art is not about giving the audience what it wants, it’s about an artist who has something to say that can’t be conveyed through words alone. I applaud a dev who has the guts to say, “I don’t care what you want, I’m making the experience I want people to experience”. I’ve seen too many games lose their vision, turn to their playerbase, and just do whatever the players tell them to. To me, that’s making escapism, not art. To me, the mark of a successful game is one where the creator makes exactly what they intended to, even if no one wants to play it.
The Factorio devs let you turn off aliens because that’s their intention for you to be able to do that, and that’s fine. And I defend your right to hack at any software running on your hardware to experience it however you want to, that’s fine. But it’s not an artist’s responsibility to help you achieve the experience you want, and we shouldn’t require them to. We can ask them to, but we shouldn’t require them to.
- Comment on Closed game studio returns to un-live service its game with community servers before shutdown: 'We don't believe Deceive Inc. should quietly disappear' 2 months ago:
I know what SKG is asking for, and I’m not suggesting they change it. What I personally want is…
So, yes, there may be a breakdown in terminology here. When I hear someone say they “demand” something from someone, for ex.
It’s not an absurd demand to get a game built for offline play
I’m hearing that you want legislation to require offline play. To me “demand” means non-negotiable.
If you aren’t saying that you think SKG should introduce legislation to make your preferences legally mandated, and instead just indicating what you would like to see from devs, maybe a better word to use is, “ask”. I don’t think it’s an absurd ask for a game to be built for offline play. But for games where offline play doesn’t make sense, it’s absurd to make it mandatory.
it’s really fucking hard to know which is which sometimes, even when doing research
Agreed, and there’s no legislation requiring devs to lay out their plan ahead of time, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the people to demand that information.
The only thing that necessitates a central server that only the company controls, even for an MMO, is the business model
I disagree. By releasing a dedicated server binary for a game, you are inviting a fractured playerbase. “Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game”, and sometimes, letting players host their own game server gives them that opportunity. It is difficult enough to get people to play your game to begin with, it can be a deathknell to your intended experience if you allow players control over hosting your game.
I’ll give a tangible example: I played Sea of Thieves several years ago. The intended experience is that you are sailing on an open sea with your crew, collecting treasure, and always with the possibility of running into another crew. Sometimes those other crews would be friendly, and you’d team up and complete content with them. Other times they would be openly hostile, and you’d immediately be thrust into a ship battle. But most interactions fell in the middle somewhere. They might help you defeat a boss, only to then turn on you and take the treasure for themselves. Because you’re pirates. That tension of not knowing who you can trust was core to the game.
But for the entire life of SoT, players complained about running into pirates in their pirating game. “Just give me a way to do the PvE content by myself” they would complain. Eventually, they caved. They were likely losing too many players to inconvenient experiences with other players. The result is that now all the peaceful players isolate themselves, never to experience any random human interaction in game ever again, and the vast majority of people playing on open seas are just cutthroats trolling for blood. You end up with, what I believe is a less interesting experience for everyone, none of it is the original intended experience. IMO, by allowing players more choice, they chose money over the novel experience I loved the game for.
But even though I don’t play any more, the moment SoT decides they’re done hosting their servers, I don’t care what they do, as long as I can still play that game with other people. I can’t demand that they preserve the experience I liked; that’s their art and they’ve done what they want with it. But I can demand that my license to play the game never expires for any reason.
- Comment on Closed game studio returns to un-live service its game with community servers before shutdown: 'We don't believe Deceive Inc. should quietly disappear' 2 months ago:
They can have a ladder and matchmaking while still providing a server browser that goes to self-hosted servers
True, but I explained that for a small team who has to choose where the spend their resources, supporting both can be prohibitively costly
these are things that you set up with the assumption that your game is going to have a massive population
False, I listed several features a game of any size might reasonably want.
MMOs have been self-hosted for as long as pirates have been reverse-engineering the code
That’s irrelevant to the discussion for multiple reasons, but the part that is relevant relates to the control over content, and an intended user experience. No one on a community MMO server is able to play alongside people on official servers, which is literally the point of an MMO. They can’t because there’s no control over the content; admins of those servers can (and do) hand out 100x the gold, XP, and top level gear, which is not the intended experience. Allowing the servers to exist is a completely separate legal matter (using a fully reverse engineered backend should not be a problem, but distributing copyrighted IP, much less charging money is a problem), but you can’t demand that a dev dedicate resources to support an unintended user experience.
If they wait until the game is a failure and about to close shop, I have no guarantee that this update will be its fate.
It would be as simple as saying, “if you can’t release a proper server binary, then you have to make your source available to license holders” (There may need to be an audit step when selling a game in a country to prove that they have the legal ability to open source their backend if it comes to that, but that is tenable.)
I still end up with all the other negative side effects of an always-online game in the interim.
Then make your own game. That’s an absurd demand. That’s like going to a theater or buying a bluray, and then demanding the director re-shoot various scenes on your behalf. They made the experience they made, they’re willing to sell you a license to experience what they made. No one is forcing you to buy it, and we should force them to ensure the license never expires and that experience can always be experienced.
- Comment on Closed game studio returns to un-live service its game with community servers before shutdown: 'We don't believe Deceive Inc. should quietly disappear' 2 months ago:
This is just not the case. There are many reasons to have a centralized model, especially for a small studio who has to focus their efforts.
If you want to have a ladder, a matchmaking system, unlockable content, or even just to guarantee a smooth user experience, then you need the server to run on your own trusted hardware.
Literally no MMO could work without a centralized model. Destiny relies on this. Every competitive shooter, or extraction shooter relies on this.
And when you’re a small studio, and you have “support the server that won’t be distributed publicly” and “support the server that will be distributed publicly”, one of those requires an order of magnitude more effort just for validation. When you have to crunch for a deadline, sorry, the primary user experience is going to get priority.
They are doing voluntarily what I want a Stop Killing Games initiative to require from all studios: just ensure the game continues to work.
Hopefully their next project isn’t built with the same naivety.
You understand they’re going out of business, right?