Voroxpete

@Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Fable game removes feature core to franchise's DNA⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, I fucking detest the way morality systems in games work.

  I don’t think they’re a fundamentally unworkable idea, but very few games have even come close to doing anything good with the concept.

  Most just offer you two equal but different benefits, let you pick between them, and call that morality. See Bioshock. And the Mass Effect / KOTOR system always sucked because it punished you for going down the middle (ie, playing a complex character).

  One of the only good morality systems I’ve ever seen is Metro 2033. For those who don’t know, the game has a secret personality tracker. It gives you points for taking actions that are pro-social. You get a lot of opportunities in the game to refuse benefits or give up resources to help others. You are never directly rewarded for this. It doesn’t do the bullshit where you give someone some food and they go “Here’s an old gun I had lying around.” Being kind costs you. It also measures the time you spend interacting with people, listening in on conversations, that kind of thing. By the end of the game, if you’ve played your character like someone who cares about other people, you get an opportunity to make a better choice, that leads to a better outcome. If you don’t, the choice is never presented to you at all, because the character you portrayed wouldn’t even think there was a choice to be made in that situation. It’s brilliant, and it completely solves the usual Deus Ex / Mass Effect “Three buttons” ending where nothing leading up to it matters. To be able to make the good ending choice you have to have played the kind of character who would be willing to make that choice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Fable game removes feature core to franchise's DNA⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  “looks so bland to me”

  So… It’s a Fable game then?

  Seriously, when has this series ever been anything other than the unseasoned oatmeal of RPGs?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AI boom could falter without wider adoption, Microsoft chief Satya Nadella warns⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  “This totally amazing new product that everyone will definitely want might turn into a total failure if everyone doesn’t actually want it. Clearly, this is your fault for not wanting it hard enough, and not our fault for shoving a totally unwanted product down everyone’s throats.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nova Launcher gets a new owner and... ads⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I just switched to Lawnchair recently, and I really like it. I’ll definitely give Dragon a look.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Help with understanding memory usage discrepancy⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  You can also set these limits in your compose file, if you use compose (which you should).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Help with understanding memory usage discrepancy⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Most of those containers are probably grabbing more memory than they actually need. Consider applying some resource constraints to some of them.

  Dozzle is an excellent addition to your docker setup, giving you live performance graphs for all your containers. It can help a lot with fine tuning your setup.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Canada weighs sending soldiers to Greenland as show of NATO solidarity with Denmark⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  My wife is in the CAF. Her exact words were “I’ll go. Sign me the fuck up.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meta has discontinued its metaverse for work, too⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  But what about the zero people who used it? Whatever will they do?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anyone using Revolt?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Do they have to edit your domain into a connections file or some such

  Pretty much. I don’t remember the exact details, but that’s close enough for the cat.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anyone using Revolt?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  No, as in the person installing the app to use the service has to edit a config file.

  Yes, I have no issue editing config files. I’m self-hosting, that’s the point. All the technical load should be on me. But my completely non-technical friends should not have to edit config files to be able to access my self-hosted services. Everything, for them, should be as simple as possible.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK Expands Online Safety Act to Mandate Preemptive Scanning of Digital Communications⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I agree, but my point is that even in the minds of the people who think it’s OK to invade privacy like this, I still don’t see how this is supposed to produce useful results.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anyone using Revolt?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It can be self hosted, but to connect the clients to self-hosted servers you have to edit config files, so it’s a very user hostile solution.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meta Reportedly Cutting About 1,500 VR and AR Jobs Amid Renewed Push to Become an AI Juggernaut⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Meta cutting previous failed ventures to pay for next failed venture.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK Expands Online Safety Act to Mandate Preemptive Scanning of Digital Communications⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Even if you can somehow get past the absolutely horrendous privacy implications, how the fuck is this even supposed to work? They want to prevent “digital flashing” (eg, dick pics), but how the fuck is any system supposed to be able to tell the difference between consensual and non-consensual content? What if someone wants to see a picture of someone’s dick? Even assuming you can create a computer model that can accurately identify a dick pic every single time (you can’t), it would also have to be able to infer context to a level that would require effectively human level intelligence and the ability to make judgements across the entirety of a person’s communications. This is so far beyond impossible, from a purely technical standpoint, that I cannot begin to imagine how it was ever allowed to become law.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Going to a Protest? Don't Bring Your Phone Without Doing This First⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  That depends what you’re trying to solve. For a lot of people, they’re still gonna need their phone. I don’t think “Just use a walkie talkie bro” would read as very helpful advice to the average person.

  If, however, you are the sort of person organizing a protest or other similar activity, yes, absolutely, walkie tallies are great. A lot of people who do serious political activism talk about how radio is still the most resilient communication method. Not fool-proof, you definitely need to study up on the limitations, but an invaluable tool to be aware of.

  If you are going to a protest as a group, and you have the resources to invest a few hundred bucks, getting a set of walkie-talkies for the group plus a dedicated burner one responsible person to carry (maybe someone who will be in radio range but clear of the actual happenings) is also a solid strategy, but we also shouldn’t be acting like “Going as a group” and “spending a few hundred dollars” are prerequisites for being politically active. There need to be solutions for everyone.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mexican Senate Suspends Meeting That Would Have Authorized Entry of US Military Personnel for Naval Exercises⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Gee I fucking wonder why?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨BentoPDF is a self hostable, privacy first PDF Toolkit⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh, perfect. Thank you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨BentoPDF is a self hostable, privacy first PDF Toolkit⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly, I think this is just one where you try it for yourself. The compose file is about 4 lines long, I had the whole thing up and running in about 30 seconds (OK, 45; I forgot a port was already in use and had to redeploy).

  So far my one big complaint would be that the self-hosted version replicates the entire website, including all of the “Why choose Bento PDF” and “Try now” and so on. It’d be nice to just have the tools right there when I load it up. Other than that, well, it looks cool, I’ll know more once I actually try out the available options.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you preorder games?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We Do Not Preorder

  Seriously, don’t reward this kind of anti-consumer bullshit.

  The only acceptable justification I can see is if it’s an indie dev who has really, truly earned the trust of their players and proven that they will work tirelessly to deliver the product people want. And even then I’d be very, very unlikely to. I’m crazy excited for both of Owlcats upcoming games and I still haven’t pre-ordered them, for example.

  Pre-orders encourage bad, buggy, incomplete or deceptively marketed releases by juicing day one numbers without any need for the dev / publisher to actually release a worthy product.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Russian bombers fly near Britain, NATO scrambles fighter jets⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  For anyone not aware, this happens regularly, and has happened regularly for a long time. Recent events have made it seem more newsworthy, so mainstream press is reporting it like its a big fucking deal, but this kind of airspace testing has been standard Russian practice for a long time. Not saying it’s a good thing, but it doesn’t represent any kind of sudden escalation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some unique Games to host server's of?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  So, they had multiplayer, and it worked very well, but then they went through a whole bunch of major reworks to underlying systems that broke multiplayer, and they basically went “Yeah, that’s gonna stay broken for a while until we get all this shit done, please be patient.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are some unique Games to host server's of?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Project Zomboid is a blast, especially when you really dig into the options for changing game rules. You can basically craft your own custom zombie apocalypse. You can decide how the virus works, whether zombies are slow or fast, whether they have good eyesight, good hearing, how strong they are, where they spawn. You can change loot rarities, how long it’s been since the outbreak started, when the power gets shut off, etc, etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam Replay is live and notes only 14% "of playtime spent by all Steam users" was for 2025 releases⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Fascinatingly, this number can’t even include Fortnite, since it’s not on Steam, and has got to be the elephant in the room in terms of play time going to older games. But that is something to keep in mind when you see stats like this. It’s not all “New releases failing.” A lot of it is “Games have a much longer lifespan now.”

  Numbers wise, my top 3 were Helldivers 2, Warframe, and Vampire Survivors, all of which continued to receive content updates throughout 2025. These aren’t old games sitting on a shelf gathering dust that I went and unearthed. They’re in their prime. Warframe released a huge update specifically to coincide with the Game Awards, with a trailer featuring Werner Herzog. They’ve never been a bigger deal. Helldivers had their single biggest in-game event this year. I’ve also been spending a lot of time with Rogue Trader (just got a big patch) and Dark Tide (got two new classes and a lot of new maps added this year). Ready or Not and Insurgency also got content updates this year.

  So, yeah, peeling people away from an existing title is a much slower process now. Games no longer land like a meteor. The real successes creep up.

  This is not to say that there hasn’t been an absolute dearth of worthwhile content from the big studios. You’ll notice that every single thing I listed there is, by at least some definition, an indie game. Helldivers 2 has a big publisher in Sony, but Arrowhead were hardly a major or well known developer. Other than that, it’s all outside of the traditional publisher system. And that’s frankly a good and healthy thing. We’re seeing guys like Larian and Sandfall, Arrowhead, DE, Owlcat, Fat Shark, NetEase, Team Cherry, Super Giant, all just absolutely crushing it, and that’s genuinely fantastic news for the medium.

  It’s weird how people look at the failures of Ubisoft and EA and act like this is a bad time to be a gamer. This is one of the best times there’s ever been to be a gamer. The medium hasn’t been this healthy since the glory days of the mid-nineties, and I say that as one of the old farts who grew up in those glory days. Sandfall made Clair Obscur with a team of 60, and it’s incredible. Owlcat made Rogue Trader for basically nothing in a shed and it’s one of the best RPGs you’ll ever play. Vampire Survivors had a budget of like three french fries and some pocket lint and it’s one of the most addictive gaming experiences ever. Balatro was like one guy and it absolutely blew up the world. The fact that we’re getting games this fucking good from outside of the big name publishers is genuinely amazing. I remember the mid 2000s when indie gaming was dead in a ditch, PC gaming was just nothing but console ports, and the only stuff we got was the endless drivel the major publishers shovelled out. Yeah, there were good releases sprinkled in there, but for the most part creativity and imagination were absolutely dead. Now we get stuff like Valheim, Stardew Valley, Project Zomboid, Space Marine 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Lethal Company, Among Us, Speed Freeks, Hardspace: Shipbreaker, Escape from Tarkov, Shadows of Doubt, Hades 2, Forever Winter… And yeah, some of that stuff is janky or buggy or messy, but it’s inventive and cool and slick and all of it is coming from outside of the big names.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam Replay is live and notes only 14% "of playtime spent by all Steam users" was for 2025 releases⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, Clair Obscur and Silksong both came out this year, and they’re fantastic.

  But if we’re talking triple A stuff? Uh… Not a clue. I wanna say there was a Battlefield game?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nvidia plans heavy cuts to GPU supply in early 2026⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Two ways to read this and I think both are somewhat true.

  Option one; They’re OPEC now. They set the supply, and you bring the demand because you have no other choice. This lets them push prices up, which pushes margins up, and that hopefully props up their insanely inflated share price a little longer.

  Option two; They’re well aware that demand is going to fall off a cliff soon. We’re already at “Nvidia is paying people to buy their GPUs” and have been for a while. The AI industry can’t afford to keep this train running, and even financial chicanery and circular dealing will only get them so far. Companies are building out data centres with zero plan for how to make any profit from them. When the GPUs they have age out, they’re not gonna buy more, they’re gonna go bankrupt (allowing the banks to sieze the mountain of now worthless three year old burned out GPUs that they used as collateral). And there’s not enough venture capital left for new data centre builds. The genAI financial engine is reaching its peak, and Nvidia doesn’t want to be stuck with a mountain of production that no one wants to buy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You could throw a dart blindfolded in 1998 and hit a new legendary game every time. ⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  96-98 is the greatest three year run in the history of gaming.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meta to cut up to 30% of metaverse budget, Bloomberg News reports⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s still a metaverse budget?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK | Women's Institute to stop offering trans women membership⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  My mum quit on the spot. Told them she couldn’t look her family in the eye if she allowed herself to remain part of a transphobic organization.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gravity!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  This is not a joke. This is genuinely what a significant number of flat earthers believe.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon’s AI ‘Banana Fish’ Dubs Are Hilariously, Inexcusably Bad⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I seriously doubt that any of the decision makers involved in this process actually watch anime.