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 Sega considering Netflix-like game subscription service 8 hours ago:
I do not understand why companies are choosing to make their own streaming services when they are just money pits that provide minimal benefit.
Because everyone thought they could save money by doing it themselves. It’s rarely that easy.
- Comment on Two in one stupidish question- Debate about United Healthcare CEO and best place to have it 8 hours ago:
It’s been said that those that make change via peaceful means impossible, invite violence.
I don’t like that someone was shot, but this is the direction we’re heading unless we can get this fixed.
It’s not just health care either, it’s every large corporation trying to get more from their employees and more from their customers without giving back anything in exchange … or realizing that they have enough.
The infinite growth mindset is out of control and ridiculous.
- Comment on Destiny 2 Players Struggle To Find Fireteams As Population Drops To All-Time Low 8 hours ago:
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.
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.
- Comment on What MMORPG are you playing, and why? 1 day ago:
If you’re interested, now is a good time to start playing. There are some limited edition hats being dropped for the holiday!
- Comment on What MMORPG are you playing, and why? 2 days ago:
Brighter Shores! It’s a new game by Andrew Gower (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).
No micro transactions, generous amount of free to play content, and a $6/mo subscription.
- Comment on I am about to board a flight. What sequence of events would occur if (by chance) for no apparent reason a window got completely smashed out? 1 week ago:
I mean, I wouldn’t exactly call it smart either. Panic is pretty useless in situations where flight is not an option.
- Comment on Good ear protection for concerts. 1 week ago:
I would lean towards the 3M stuff… I mean folks are saying 3M plugs muffle things, but look at the decibel reduction rating. The loops linked in your article are 7 decibels vs 34 decibels from the real ear plugs.
Maybe 7 is enough… But I’d say the reason 34 decibel reduction is considered muffling is because it’s a real significant reduction vs a minor reduction. Maybe you only need a minor reduction though 🤷♂️.
- Comment on US rep asks Valve to remove ‘Oct. 7’ game from Steam 2 weeks ago:
Yes, they did give that exact example.
- Comment on what's the best way to react if a guy stares at you like he wants to have sex with you when you're doing yoga? 3 weeks ago:
I would phrase that as “don’t count out people with tattoos.” There are definitely some people with tattoos that you still don’t want to talk to (100% agree in 2024 though, tattoos themselves do not mean someone’s a bad person and some of those folks are lovely) haha
- Comment on what's the best way to react if a guy stares at you like he wants to have sex with you when you're doing yoga? 3 weeks ago:
I’m not sure there’s any other good reaction than the one you had.
Maybe he was just “checking you out” and being very untactful and impolite about it (i.e. he’s just awkward).
Maybe he was looking at something else near you … but probably not.
But also maybe, he’s not right in the head and was thinking about doing more than just looking…
My advice (as a guy) is either:
- Look for another person nearby (or a couple/group), voice your concern, and ask them to walk with you away from the station.
- If that fails, just do your best to leave but stay situationally aware.
I’m also going to add, that “look for help thing” includes looking for random guys that weren’t creeping you out that might be walking by. I know there’s the whole stranger danger thing that most of us were raised with, but … most guys are not rapists. If you just look for a normal looking dude (or someone that really looks like they’ve got their shit together) and ask them… I’d say 9/10 they’d be more than happy to get you out of that situation.
- Comment on What are your favorite 1000+ hour games? 4 weeks ago:
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: store.steampowered.com/…/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.”
- Comment on What are your favorite 1000+ hour games? 5 weeks ago:
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 bull shit … just a fun game with many similarities to OSRS but also modernizations, formula improvements, and lessons learned.
- Comment on Pocketpair reveals specific patents featured in Nintendo's lawsuit against Palworld 5 weeks ago:
The problem is a hash algorithm is exactly the sort of thing that copyright would be horrible at protecting. The source code is hardly relevant at all, it’s the operations that matter.
A big part of patents is to allow private sector research to occur. RCA failed and maybe patents should just fail too.
- Comment on Pocketpair reveals specific patents featured in Nintendo's lawsuit against Palworld 5 weeks ago:
like the umbrella wedge/spring to make it open automatically.
That to me is a very specific algorithm. It’s a simple mechanism but putting it together might be a bit tricky.
That’s very similar to SHA, it’s a fairly simple set of mechanisms but the actual composure of those ideas into something that works as well as SHA does takes very specific research experience. It’s not at all an abstract idea, it’s a very concrete and specific set of operations that you invented first.
Imagine if the patent was “an umbrella can open itself with the push of button” no further details. That’s close to the level of detail some software patents are argued at and effectively what the “put a game in your loading screen” patent was awarded on.
You can’t patent the idea that “an umbrella should be able to open [somehow]” so I likewise think it’s ridiculous that someone was able to parent “your game [somehow] runs another simpler game before it runs.”
Patents should be to protect very specific research so that the private sector can do said research and profit from it. Patents should not block out broad concepts. The patent in the video game situation was and should’ve been ruled as bogus. It’s not the type of thing anyone needed to research or think about, you just literally go “what if I added a game to my loading screen” and you’re in violation.
- Comment on Pocketpair reveals specific patents featured in Nintendo's lawsuit against Palworld 5 weeks ago:
I think patents should really only apply to extremely tricky algorithmic discoveries.
“Ingenuity patents” like that loading screen game are everything that’s wrong with software patents.
- Comment on Pocketpair reveals specific patents featured in Nintendo's lawsuit against Palworld 5 weeks ago:
Or at least the bar should be much much higher. Like if you’ve invented the SHA algorithm… Fine.
However, if you’ve just invented “a way to purchase something over the network via a phone”… That is not patent worthy.
- Comment on What positive things do you expect from Trumps upcoming four years? 1 month ago:
That’s just it … He’s heavily invested in alternative energy…
Tesla makes electric cars, home and industrial battery packs, and rooftop solar. It’s in his interest for Republicans to believe in climate change.
At the very least it’s in his interest for Republicans to not squash electric cars and solar power.
- Comment on What positive things do you expect from Trumps upcoming four years? 1 month ago:
Yes, there are a lot of them still lurking…
Liberty Tabletop, American Blanket Company, American Giant, Craftsman, etc
- Comment on What positive things do you expect from Trumps upcoming four years? 1 month ago:
Republican voters
- Comment on Should I bring in the battery for my electric mower in the winter? 1 month ago:
IIRC heat is the bigger issue for lithium batteries.
They’re temporarily less effective in cold weather but excessive heat is the battery killer.
- Comment on After Era of Bloat, Veteran Video-Game Developers Are Going Smaller 1 month ago:
Nintendo is in a very envious spot in general. Hell, I think Nintendo makes some great games, I just wish they wouldn’t force me to buy yet another computer solely for the purpose of playing their games. I haven’t owned a Mario Kart or Zelda game in years but I’d love to play if I could do so on PC/Linux.
- Comment on After Era of Bloat, Veteran Video-Game Developers Are Going Smaller 1 month ago:
Yeah, maybe I’m just wrong in general … The above doesn’t look that different from say black ops 6 footage.
I definitely wish for a return to the linear format (or simi linear where there are a few concurrent linear quests going on). I think straight up open world just lends itself to making a lot of walking simulators.
Halo Infinity was one of the most boring games I ever played between the weapons sounding like toys and the spread out objectives with no clear central mission.
- Comment on After Era of Bloat, Veteran Video-Game Developers Are Going Smaller 1 month ago:
Because graphics still sell games. You can do simplified graphics like Nintendo and still sell games, but lots of people want the photo realistic experience and the bar for that has gone way way up incrementally over the years.
- Comment on Is china as bad as america makes it out to be? 1 month ago:
I think you should pick up a civics book and/or lookup what a monarch is.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
- Comment on Are there any apps or sites that collate all the patch notes for games? 1 month ago:
I’m happy to say, IMO, you’re still using the meta RSS client haha
- Comment on Are there any apps or sites that collate all the patch notes for games? 1 month ago:
I use Inoreader on both desktop and mobile (they have a very feature rich app, synchronize your experience up, and have a generous free plan).
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
This works to some extent. I have a house that used to be a rental.
I had one lady tell me she couldn’t take MY HOUSE off their list because I am not the guy who signed up for the mail. Even though that guy hasn’t lived here in years.
Someone else used this address for a business… After they no longer even lived here. So I had to take that up with the state and got their business license revoked.
- Comment on Why are peole hating on .world? 2 months ago:
I’m eyeing Piefed and Sublinks. I’ve done a lot with Python and Java… Maybe at some point I’ll find the time to contribute more than the bit of PR review I’ve done for Sublinks.
I’m also watching mastodon, particularly because they’re working on groups… And I don’t mind the Twitter style, I’ve just come to prefer following topics over people… And hashtags just get flooded with low effort crap.