Dark_Arc
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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.
- Comment on Marathon vs. Arc Raiders - Discussion of the games' opposite opinions 1 day ago:
Yeah for me, it’s the variety of tales that you author. Every game feels a bit like a new adventure, after a while similar to ones you’ve been on before, but still new.
ARC has those elements, but something feels off so far for me…
- Comment on Marathon vs. Arc Raiders - Discussion of the games' opposite opinions 2 days ago:
I haven’t played Marathon, but I did get into the ARC test. This will mostly be some ramblings…
I’m still waiting to play ARC with some friends. I only did some solo stuff.
I’m coming from this as a big Hunt Showdown player (1,200+ hours) and someone that’s played a bit of Forever Winter (~20). I still like Hunt better; I think it’s the only extraction shooter that didn’t take a ton of influence from Tarkov.
I wasn’t crazy about the marathon art style, but I’m not ready to pass judgement on it until I’ve been in the world.
ARC’s art style I found beautiful but also perhaps too sparse. There were so many wide open spaces … I just don’t see that being a good thing for an extraction shooter. The world felt vast and empty … I prefer Hunt’s more cluttered and dense design.
ARC does seem to have a lot of potential in like how it’s designed its AI, Hunt’s is very primitive in a lot of ways and kind of secondary. I think the AI is going to be a bigger deal in ARC.
Third person also feels worse to me than first person. I hope they add a first person mode to ARC, but I kind of doubt they will.
I definitely agree that ARC felt like it was being set up to tell a story and felt very cinematic at times.
The UI also felt like the best extraction shooter UI I’ve ever encountered.
I’m concerned about the long term health of ARC. The progression system seems like it will certainly lead to established players dominating newer players. The lack of a primary objective that’s shared by all the teams on the map … I’m not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, it may lead to a more relaxed experience, on the other hand, it doesn’t curate players towards each other like Hunt does; it seems looting and crafting are the primary motivators instead.
The flights that I did get into, they lacked the complex environment and buildings in Hunt so I didn’t find them nearly as engaging, they were much more straight forward gunfights than leveraging the map to my it my opponents advantage. I think that aspect will ultimately hurt the game as it makes it feel like a bit of a generic shooter.
Overall ARC felt very middle of the road from what I’ve played of it so far. I had a similar feeling about The Finals. Embark seems like a talented studio and I wish them the best as they go up against Bungie and Crytek.
- Comment on How are the blatant anti-competitive practices of Apple just…allowed? How is this even possible? 3 weeks ago:
Something to implement signing given the key to sign with could almost certainly be created.
I think the biggest reason this stuff hasn’t really happened is … there’s not much motivation and Apple will likely respond to such efforts unkindly so you might need to be a bit of a curious masochist (or at least in strange circumstances) to attempt such an effort 😅
- Comment on How are the blatant anti-competitive practices of Apple just…allowed? How is this even possible? 3 weeks ago:
You don’t really; a cross compilation with a compiler that can generate the ARM instructions for Apple’s ARM CPUs should largely just work.
However, it’s impossible to test the produced app without using an iPhone or MacOS’s tools to simulate running on an iPhone. You also are just going to have way less of an uphill battle using Apple’s tools and you’re likely to get better optimized binaries.
You also don’t have to build iOS apps with Swift; C++ and things like Qt can be used.
- Comment on How are the blatant anti-competitive practices of Apple just…allowed? How is this even possible? 3 weeks ago:
For MacOS you’re right, for iOS OP is right; you’re being a dick about it though, so maybe that’s the issue.
- Comment on X’s dominance ‘over’ as Bluesky becomes new hub for research 3 weeks ago:
Even if you understand the tech, the fediverse has a content discovery problem. The content you want to see may actually exist. However, your instance needs knowledge of the content that best fits you. That’s what bluesky’s model does better.
- Comment on The Trouble With TikTok Is Getting Old 3 weeks ago:
Bluesky is another instance of effectively what you’re talking about, an open algorithm platform. In theory Skylight (ATProtocol short form video app) is as well.
- Comment on The Trouble With TikTok Is Getting Old 4 weeks ago:
It’s not the media, it’s the recommendation algorithm.
They’re all a problem, but we have no way to regulate or monitor the algorithms as it stands.
Tiktok is an even higher risk because the recommendation algorithm is unknown to anyone on US soil. Nobody is going to whistleblow from the inside on TikTok because… they can’t; it’s all compartmentalized and nobody outside of China has access to the algorithm.
- Comment on LAN (local area network) games 1 month ago:
Anything with a server software you can host can be played on LAN (okay probably not some things because they’re being weird but in general this is true).
That means counter strike, Minecraft, supertuxkart, xonotic, enshrouded, pal world, etc
- Comment on How come in most school in the USA (at least mine) they teach Spain Spanish instead of Mexico Spanish? Would not Mexico Spanish be an obvious choice to teach? 1 month ago:
I don’t know for sure what we learned, but I remember my Spanish teacher talking about a girl from Spain that came to her class and didn’t do her work.
Apparently the girl wasn’t doing well in Spanish class and later accused the teacher of teaching “gutter Mexican.”
Which … honestly didn’t hit me as the flex my Spanish teacher seemed to be making it out to be.
- Comment on Not trying to choose a side but when did Dems become well wussies? They Have FDR, JFK, OBAMA, Clinton, under their belt. The Reps have Reagan. How come the Dems don't fight fire with fire anymore? 1 month ago:
The filibuster is a thing and that regularly prevents anything from getting done without 60 votes.
Obama in his book talks about this and how his biggest regret is not ending the filibuster as his first action because it proceeded to cripple his entire administration and agenda for the majority of his presidency.
- Comment on Not trying to choose a side but when did Dems become well wussies? They Have FDR, JFK, OBAMA, Clinton, under their belt. The Reps have Reagan. How come the Dems don't fight fire with fire anymore? 1 month ago:
sufficient majority
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
It’s a complicated issue in the United States because of the history. Lots of countries did slavery, but at the point the United States did it, science was starting to spark into its modern form and one idea that “seemed good at the time” was pursuing superior genes.
That … went really really really sideways and basically became a justification for continued slavery on the premise that white people were just better and they were doing the inferior black people a favor. Basically while the rest of the world was going “maybe slavery isn’t good” the US was like “slavery is the humane thing to do, because science!”
Even after shit like that gets disproven people still tend to believe some amount of it (look at the antivax movement). So, even after the slaves were freed, they and their children were looked down upon by the culture. Many black people remained uneducated, financially bankrupt, etc. The culture especially in the south fought really hard to keep it that way for a looonnngggggg time.
That kind of formed a counter culture of its own, the “gang” culture. Which isn’t all that different from the counter culture you see that came from prohibition and the moonshiners and such … basically outlaws fighting the man, looked down upon, etc
So basically there are several main US cultures, Northern East White, Midwestern White, West Coast White, Southern White, Black, and the Appalachian White/redneck culture that descends from a mix of the moonshine runners, rural farmers, coal miners, and white southern culture.
Black people of course have multiple cultures even within the US but it’s all kind of lumped into this messy “black culture” thing. Some black people I’ve met love the black gangster with the gold chains imagery and hold it up as something great and the “true black culture”, others see it as ridiculous and trashy.
Calling these other cultures white is also intellectually dishonest as the entire US is a melting pot and the cultures of those regions were not formed by a single skin color … but I’m using “white” for the purposes of the contrast …
Anyways, black people just kind of stand out so they’re an easy target… and they have been targeted for a very long time fueled (at least in part) by that long ruled scientifically ridiculous idea that they’re inferior.
Add in the extra spice that the Appalachian subculture is angry about being tied in with the other white cultures despite being screwed over by the government a lot (not to the extent black people were, but still badly) … and you’ve basically got the mess that is America in 2025.
There’s a mix of justifiably mad people on both sides, outright racists, and people that serve to benefit from the conflict never ending politically.
- Comment on Not trying to choose a side but when did Dems become well wussies? They Have FDR, JFK, OBAMA, Clinton, under their belt. The Reps have Reagan. How come the Dems don't fight fire with fire anymore? 1 month ago:
Obama did it (kind of); he moved the party line to policy instead of stunts and cutthroat politics.
At the same time, he never gained a sufficient majority to enact his platform (in truth we’re lucky we got the affordable care act). Biden ran into similar issues with what was technically a majority but that had weak votes (e.g. Manchin).
Honestly the problem is the Senate; Democrats just can’t get past the threshold that would let them actually govern.
A Promised Land by Obama is an extremely good book if you want to understand the modern democratic party. Obama did a lot to get the spark back but also was in a very difficult position.
- Comment on A funny thing in Iran is how they repackage old PlayStation consoles 2 months ago:
But I have such a soft spot for how beautiful the console is from a design and hardware standpoint. That boxy gray box is such beauty.
Agree to disagree lol
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
Truthfully the you that’s reading this this second, might have just come into existence with all the memories you have now. There’s no way to know how volatile truth really is in our universe.
- Comment on Some examples of video games with an UI layout ripped off of another game? 2 months ago:
They even sued a guy who spent 6 years writting, casting, shooting, and producing a full length live action Zelda movie. They released it online for about a week before it got taken down. Never to be downloaded by anyone who didn’t grab it right away.
Man that would be soul crushing …
- Comment on Why the 2020 video game Immortals: Fenyx Rising doesn't infringe on the trademark of the 2011 film Immortals? 2 months ago:
Trademark isn’t supposed to be enforceable on such generic words.
Like, Bethesda tried to sue Mojang away from launching “Scrolls” because of their Elder Scrolls games. That got settled and eventually Mojang renamed the game before scrapping it anyways, but yeah.
It’s also pretty wild once you realize that laws in general are these things where “whatever side argues best, sets the interpretation.” Anti-slap laws are also worth having and reading up on to stop bogus lawsuits, but now I’m just rambling.
- Comment on Cozy Games May Help Improve Players' Mental Health, Researchers Say 2 months ago:
Arguably Brighter Shores is a cozy game and it’s got an appealing art style to my eyes
- Comment on RuneScape is planning on introducing Black Mirror inspired membership plans 3 months ago:
It’s definitely still an early access game, but it’s progressing nicely, incredibly stable, charming, backed by a passionate team, and well priced.
- Comment on RuneScape is planning on introducing Black Mirror inspired membership plans 3 months ago:
Come join /c/brightershores and get away from this mess
- Comment on RuneScape is planning on introducing Black Mirror inspired membership plans 3 months ago:
Jagex is particularly guilty of this
- Comment on Supreme Court upholds law banning TikTok if it's not sold by its Chinese parent company 3 months ago:
- Comment on Supreme Court upholds law banning TikTok if it's not sold by its Chinese parent company 3 months ago:
I guess Biden isn’t going to enforce it and Trump has promised not to as well. So… This sucks.
- Comment on US: Rather Than Ban TikTok, the Best Way to Protect App Users is to Strengthen Privacy, Transparency, and Security Protections Online, Freedom House Says 3 months ago:
- Comment on Nintendo Switch 2 – First-look trailer 3 months ago:
😱😱😱😱😱
- Comment on Why Nevada Created a County With No People, Buildings, or Roads | Half as Interesting [6:38] 3 months ago:
tldw the country was made because the fed government wanted to put nuclear waste storage there, and they made this county to with nobody in it with extremely high property taxes to try and profit off of this. Supreme Court of Nevada killed the county as unconditional because there was nobody in it. Nuclear waste was never put there.
- Comment on Why is daisychaining multiple extension cords considered unsafe, even if only done to the length of a standard cable? 4 months ago:
Some power systems do actually put a fuse in the extension cord… I think it’s the UK that does this. Basically every power system other than the US uses different (safer) plug designs that solve the arcing problem.
In practice daisy chaining rarely causes a serious problem and it makes things more expensive so it never really became a thing that was legislated or common within the US. Similar to how the plug designs themselves rarely cause a problem so it hasn’t made sense to actually change them.
- Comment on Why is daisychaining multiple extension cords considered unsafe, even if only done to the length of a standard cable? 4 months ago:
There are two things going on here.
The first is that yes, more connections causes more opportunities for the plugs to slip. So you can get short circuits or even arcing that can start a fire.
The second is that the wire in the cord has a certain rating on it. Many of those cords do not use 12 (20 amp) or 14 (15 amp) gauge wire; so, they’re not rated for the full capacity of the wire in the wall. The breakers are sized to protect the wires in the wall, they don’t know anything about the things plugged into them. So what can happen is you plug too much into the extension cord (particularly if it’s a power strip) and the load on the extension cord is not enough to trip the breaker (because the walls are fine) but it’s enough to overload the extension cord wire. In other words, the extension cord can start getting so hot it melts and possibly arcs up as the insulation fails.
You can have a fire from overloading a single power strip in just the same way. However, the more you chain together, the more likely you are to overload the power strip.
Ideally, you just think about what you’re doing… But historically the easy answer is just to tell people not to chain things.
In short it’s not about the distance, it’s about the insulation and quality of the wire itself along with the number of connections.
- Comment on Against the Storm looks charming and cosy, but it's actually the best and most fiendish city builder I've played in years 4 months ago:
I’m in like the opposite camp… But I’ve never been able to get past the initial learning curve of the game. Something has never clicked with this one for me