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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 5th, 2023

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  • Typical Crimson Fleet geezer right here.

    I’m on the same page as you are, though.

    @[email protected] you should probably do the same if the price tag is too much for you. If you really do feel wrong about it, you could first get the game, keep playing it all you want, and then just pay later; or, if the experience turns out to be disappointing, never pay for it as a result.

    Either is better than pre-ordering. Even if Starfield is worth every penny on launch, i.e. no bugs, no issues that cannot justify the price tag, not a single argument against the very practice of pre-ordering games, giving companies money before they deliver anything at all is giving them much more than just the money - it’s giving them an idea that it’s okay to ask for money before any of the paying customers ever get anything, and this kind of appeasement has to stop.



  • Can anyone explain to me, a dumbass, what it means for my current save file? I haven’t beaten the main quest yet because I’ve been doing everything else for over 120 hours (finally got all the gigs and NCPD scanners, at least), but I still don’t see how an overhaul of that caliber is going to play well with the current balance of things. Judging by that one update that reset my skill and perk points, I think we can expect some resets again.

    I think Phantom Liberty is my incentive to finally finish the game and then start a completely new playthrough, preferably with a consistent build and playstyle this time from start to finish. So much to choose from!


  • I’m sure this kind of concerns is one of the prime reasons that seems to “slow down” the support. I don’t want to whitewash anyone, but I’ll give credit when credit is due - the officials in the western(-oriented) countries do realize that they’re a temporary asset in their position, with a goal to contribute to the society that enables their entire lifestyle. While some may not be a proper fit for the position of such power, today many, if not everyone, realize that they’re going to have to step down sooner rather than later, and if they want to enjoy the benefits, they better make the electorate happy - today, this surely includes making sure that none of the electorate has to go die because Putin wanted some landgrab out of some pissy revenge and power-hunger.

    We all want this war to end as soon as possible. Even Putin wants to, undoubtedly, but he’s too stupid and arrogant to withdraw and admit he made a mistake.


  • I don’t think that’s what they meant.

    Judging by the “long range targets” mentioned, I’d assume they’re talking about the precautions many Ukraine supporters are voicing, such as that providing Ukraine with proper longer-range equipment would be seen by Russia (Putin, more specifically, and some other old farts) as existential threat, leading to them actually nuking someone, or something along these lines. Basically the same old appeasement and careful treading around an old and delusional dictator.

    Like you said, you hope you won’t have to go and fight for Ukraine (I don’t mean to sound offensive in any way, I just don’t know how to frame it better), and I think this is similar to what the leaders of the western nations have been feeling as well - hoping that they won’t have to send anything more than equipment and ammo that won’t provoke an even larger conflict.

    But in all honesty, we’ve seen action in Russia for quite some time anyway, now with merciful drone attacks on Moscow and active combat in Belgorod (if I’m not mistaken). There’s a reason people like me don’t lead nations, but to me it seems like Ukraine is both capable of bringing war onto the Russian soil anyway, and has shown to do so in a strategic and insanely restrained way (I can easily imagine the drone attack on Moscow going a very different way than it did).

    To me, it seems like giving Ukraine proper long-range equipment is not going to result in anything more than unambiguous defense, without avenger strikes that Putin can use for… whatever. And, well, after almost 1.5 years of war, one would think that if Putin was capable of doing something that the western leaders fear so much, he would already do it, as an unhinged tyrant like he is. Putin seems to care about his life, maybe his immediate family’s life, too, knowing full well that a nuclear strike is a sure way to make their life either extremely difficult in whatever way, or even end it prematurely (most likely, in extreme pain and/or fear). Not to mention that launching nukes takes way more than just one man pressing the button, or even three men - the people directly responsible for executing the order always have a change of turning out to be more sensible and not committing to the procedure; in the end, Russia must have more people willing to live, even among the nuclear personnel, rather than die for some absurd ambition that only one old sorry fuck shares.

    Oh, and judging by the actual state of the Russian military that was revealed to us all after they invaded Ukraine, I seriously doubt they have anything worthwhile left in stock - might’ve ended up as a liquidated asset in a form of some general’s palace, yacht, or several apartments somewhere in the western world.



  • Same engine doesn’t necessarily meant the same problems. Game engines aren’t a monolith solution - Source, for example, the engine that used to be famous for its physics back in the day, uses another engine to handle said physics.

    So, the fact that Starfield is going to use the same engine (I don’t know if it does, actually, I don’t care) is not a reason to panic or be upset. For all we know, they may have updated many of its components in one way or another, including swapping some for better alternatives.

    Having seen the entire Starfield Direct, I honestly do believe it’s an upgraded version of the engine - it really looks like it doesn’t behave in the same way. And, well, the new tech the devs can leverage allows them to work on some older engine limitations as well, resulting in a smoother experience overall, especially knowing what they were going for in this game.


  • Completely agree. At first, I though that the Reddit’s voting system is great, as it aims to be somewhat similar to the approach Stack Overflow has taken, with actually helpful answers ending up at the top… which does not apply to what Reddit is, which is a forum, which is a bunch of people sharing opinions most of the time, and voting on that has never been a great idea.

    Hitting an upvote or a downvote is a very basic type of engagement, a way of expressing something without having to say anything. And it’s not doing much good to a forum-like platform. I’ve been trying to find places that don’t have any vote systems, akin to the old-school forums, but I wasn’t able to find anything that fit my taste or activity preferences (feel free to point to some if you know any).



  • I think this kind of politics has been doing pretty alright before Twitter as well. They may have been lucky to have an entire platform dedicated to them in some way, but all it’s done is gather all the populists in one place to happily form echo chambers. It’s what Facebook has been for years, too.

    We’re probably more aware of it than we used to be when this style was more spread out, but this bullshit has been doing well before, is doing well, and will do well with or without Twitter or any platform that forces short, clear-cut messages. People like this shit - this is the prime reason that counties living under dictatorship often have people praising their leaders for being “strong and effective”, i.e. if it sounds good, it must be good, with little firrheer analysis taking place; stickijg the the dictatorships example, you’ll often see the opposition followers falling very well for the same kind of populist talk or doing away with the past and punishing the dictator and their enablers.






  • Not to mention that the discussion is almost guaranteed to consist of similarly short (or even shorter) witty one-liners. Twitter format is just horrible, and its restrictions promote equally horrible behavior where you have to look for ways to convey ideas and feeling in a short manner, which almost never results in more polite and sophisticated conversations.

    Never used Twitter for anything more serious than some announcements from the game devs I follow. Anything else is just plain stupid, which makes me really surprised over the wide-spread adoption of Twitter by officials and ministries and the like.

    And raising the character limit is going to be even more absurd, because then it’s going to be reminiscent of an actual forum, just less structured and sensible.

    Twitter, as a format, is the worst option between messengers like Matrix and proper forums of any kind.






  • Nothing, really. I’ve been daily driving Linux for years, couldn’t be happier. ;)

    I still agree that Linux and FOSS in general is political, honestly. Not because I want to say “what isn’t political?”, but because a lot of things about Linux and FOSS stand for privacy, freedom, transparency, responsibility, accountability, voluntary effort that benefits others (it can benefit you as well, though), etc. - all of these things seem to me like a piece of political discussion at least to some degree.

    The most important point about this, though, is the fact that being political does not necessarily mean that Linux or FOSS has to enforce some kind of opinion among its users or community or around its discussion. You’re right in saying it’s just a technology, but it doesn’t mean that using Linux or FOSS isn’t a political decision - even (or especially) if your sole reason to run Linux is money.

    I used to get really pissed at people who considered everything to be political, but these days, I think I agree, because everything you like or don’t like about your life (including the tech you use) is influenced by politics, so you do discuss it one way or the other in most conversations. Especially tech, though.


  • Eh, I liked the fact that Reddit has boilerplate rules for everyone to follow, basically. I know a lot of that is ignored, but it’s not a bad idea.

    The coolest thing about having all that federated is the non-monolithic approach. Different instances can kinda be seen like different backups, especially during the first waves of power users happily self-hosting instances. Everybody wins when there’s a healthy balance between what kind of power the everymen and the more powerful ones have. Not that there’s some looming overseer for Lemmy, but the point remains.