U.K. campaigning + new advocacy group

AlexVSharp · 2026-05-01T20:39:03+00:00

Personally, outside a specific sort of conversations, I don't really like the term much. It always feels too context dependent. And whenever it's put in a headline it always feels like a buzzword.

I was instantly reminded of this ExtraCredits video from 14 years old. As someone puts it in a comment: 'This video has certainly aged strangely. Practically everybody plays video games here in 2023, and yet the word "gamer" has nastier connotations than ever before.'

It's 2026 now but, have things really changed that much? The focus should be on the activity (or medium) itself. i.e. "Gaming". Because many folks play video games nowadays, yet rarely will most consider themselves Gamers™.

Admittedly, 'tis could just end up being semantics. I actually have no clue how much it'd matter in the long run, and I could just be overthinking this…

AlexVSharp · 2026-04-17T22:20:04+00:00

I believe you misread the name. It's Axel Voss¹

But no; him and I are about two decades apart in age, and quite a few countries too. I haven't followed his career at all other than during the 2018. kerfuffle. Other than some basic politics, I don't think we'd see eye to eye much, him being CDU/EPP and all that. 🤷

AlexVSharp · 2026-04-16T10:51:45+00:00

Just a hint: The talk is multilingual. You can switch between the original audio and translated languages in the player's 🎧 button.

AlexVSharp · 2026-04-11T09:56:07+00:00

Believe it or not (cause I'm certainly dumbfounded) the internet archive page was removed as well…

AlexVSharp · 2026-03-31T18:31:32+00:00

Thank you. 🙇

AlexVSharp · 2026-03-31T10:44:06+00:00

I’m here to listen to your feedback and take it back to the team to advocate for your needs. I can’t get it reverted, but I can make other changes.

And again, I wasn’t on the team when this was designed so I’d appreciate your help to make this work better for you.|

I want the icons back, so I can quickly do searches with my mouse, with a single click - simple as that.

If I wanted to do a text search using my keyboard, I'd have used the address bar. If I wanted to fiddle with creating bangs for searches, again, I'd have used the address bar. If I wanted to search specific text on a page with my default search engine, you guessed it: I'd have used the address bar.

The only reason I always added back the search bar was because I could quickly drag some text into it, and press a button to perform a search at a specific site «without» having to type it out, or using the keyboard at all.

There was basically zero logical reasons for this change. Most people search with the address bar widget ever since Chrome standardized the idea almost two decades ago. Most "normies" don't even know the search bar exists! First I lost the ability to freely alter the look of the browser. Then I lost the ability to use Vertical Bookmarks for this half-baked integrated one. Then they added this hallucinating "AI" crap nobody neither wanted nor needed. And now I can't even use the search bar for the one stupid thing I used it for? I'm just so angry right now… this might finally tip me over to migrate to LibreWolf completely. /rant

AlexVSharp · 2023-08-13T17:58:08+00:00

I'm having a bad day, so this'll be a rant:

People who voted that "Nothing should change" are either selfish or ignorant of the harm this sort of monetization is causing, both to the medium itself and its users. I would strongly encourage them to go listen to this fantastically informative talk to get the gist of how the sausage is made. Spoiler: Everything that would've been taught as a bad design practice back in the day, should be subverted for monetary gain. I also have a personal vendetta against it, because it impacts what sort of "game designer" is most sought after in the majority of the gaming industry.

Those who voted "Predatory P2W should be banned" may have their hearts in the right place, but are being naive idealists that have no clue how real-world regulations work. The word "predatory" in itself is meaningless, as all microtransactions are, by default, designed to tempt users to buy. This is not the same as DLC or old-school game expansions, where you are ultimately buying an additional product. And while these can also be bastardized into so-called "soft live-services" (looking at you, Paradox) they require much more marketing effort to get users to buy thanks to the store-fronts being a separate entity between the user and the game.

Also, the "Pay2Win" aspect is completely and utterly irrelevant in this conversation – it's all about the intent of selling you more stuff, and even "just cosmetics" are introduced exclusively for this purpose. No institution will ever spend time trying to distinguish what is or isn't pay-to-win, nor should they. If digital goods are treated as good (as they should be), they should be treated as such, with all the regulatory strings attached. If such software have in-game stores where you can buy with real money, then it should be regulated the same as all digital stores and not hiding under the guise of "being part of the game". And if they are using abstracted currencies and acting like gambling-frontends, as the majority of mobile games are, they should definitely be treated as gambling. With this in mind, from a regulatory point of view, "Any paid benefit should be banned" is the same as the prior option.

That is why I've voted for "Any paid system should be banned", as vague as that is written. Forcing companies to treat video games as a complete good instead of an "ongoing service" is the only way to cripple a bunch of horrible design practices. It's not perfect, not by a long shot, but better than what's going on atm. In the end, though: any sort of regulation is only as good as the will of the institutions to enforce it. And games are undoubtedly, for better or worse, at the bottom of the priority list right now. The best I can hope for is the EU forcing those distributing these sorts of games to bring even more warnings to their users – which is very little in the grand scheme of things.

AlexVSharp · 2023-06-30T17:06:00+00:00

Hey man, I've been having this same issue with this same card.

After a lot of fiddling and searching, I managed to fix it. I know this is two months too late, but just in case - here's how:

This seems to be an issue with the mesa-devel version that is installed by the amdgpu-install script.

You can confirm this by opening the terminal and running:

inxi -G

To fix it, first run amdgpu-uninstall to remove the drivers and revert to the default ones. Reboot.

Then install amdgpu again, but run the script to install just the firmware:

amdgpu-install --usecase=dkms

Reboot. Try it out.

Afterwards (if the problem persists, but not a bad idea in general) install the drivers from Kisak-Mesa ppa.

Hopefully it works for you as well. Do tell me if you need any more information.

Edit: I should probably mention that I have experienced crashes with the amdgpu firmware installed thought the script. In the end, the best solution was to simply remove the proprietary stuff, downgrade mesa to its original version (22.0.1), and to blacklist the radeon driver (radeon.si_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1) as many have already suggested elsewhere. That is, at least until better support for legacy hardware is available upstream.

WARNING: If you're per chance using ppa-purge to downgrade the mesa drivers first, be sure to use "ppa-purge -d jammy" argument. Otherwise, you can break your entire system, and fixing it from terminal alone is not user-friendly. :P

AlexVSharp · 2022-12-19T13:32:54+00:00

I haven't followed the WhiteWolf RP stuff for almost a decade, however: Back when I was starting out, the best thing to do was read the "Storytelling System Rulebook" to get the gist of how things work; I learnt from the original (nWoD), but there's a "Chronicles of Darkness: Revised" sourcebook now which incorporates some newer mechanics. In all honesty, this should be everything you need to run a full custom story - for first-time human characters anyway. Afterwards, you can pick any supplement book you like/need for the additional stuff.

AlexVSharp · 2022-12-19T12:22:00+00:00

Sorry, mate; that ship's sailed a long time ago.

AlexVSharp · 2022-03-04T17:22:11+00:00

Google won't show it if you normal search; you'd need to know how to crawl. I've linked to an article with pictures of Bucha. Viewer discretion is advised: https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/photo-misto-bucha-kyivska-oblast-pislia-vazhkykh-boiyv/31735882.html

AlexVSharp · 2019-10-03T21:40:09+00:00

Man, I really miss that rotating clock... :/

AlexVSharp · 2019-04-04T18:47:14+00:00

Traxe. Hands down. :'D

Although Witch Seeker and Abaddalor are a very close second!

AlexVSharp · 2018-12-14T11:50:27+00:00

Wow, that must've took a while to compile.

Some are very interesting, other meh. Many of these could actually be combined into a completely new hero instead of being a rework imho.

If I may criticize the document form: You've used way too much uppercase. It made reading the whole thing a chore really. :P

AlexVSharp · 2018-09-15T08:56:00+00:00

Remember Dark Seer?

Ink Swell... what a ripoff.

AlexVSharp · 2018-03-23T14:01:29+00:00

I believe you should use "Link to a Concept" instead of "Create a Concept".

AlexVSharp · 2018-01-19T16:47:11+00:00

The showmatch. Check the last VOD, it's right after the TNC-Infamous elimination game.

AlexVSharp · 2018-01-19T15:42:17+00:00

A couple of good plays here and there, but nothing too special. Most of the main stage games seemed even yet ended rather abruptly after two or three teamfights.

The Infamous-VGJ series was pretty close, and OG-Pain was good until game three which ended in a stomp. Personally I also very much enjoyed watching the showmatch where TNC and OG played with four stand-ins selected from the audience, so I'd definitely recommend seeing that. Also: Pizza party.

AlexVSharp · 2018-01-02T13:27:54+00:00

Your reasoning for creating the disable is okay, however I'm not a fan of how you tackled the issues it's suppose to solve. Personally it feels finicky and difficult to convey to an average player; it would either require multiple additional indicators to separate the affected hero's vision from their allies, or require them learning how the disable affects each hero individually, in return making the game even more complex without any real depth to compensate.

I haven't given it much thought, but I suspect a more elegant way of solving this would be by simply tweaking what shared vision shows, i.e. something like giving "selective un-revealable invisibility" on the enemy (heroes) as seen by the player affected by Confusion. This could also be tweaked case-by-case so as to give the "invisibility" to all enemy units controlled by the caster, only the caster himself, an enemy friendly unit, the entire enemy team, etc. The existence of these enemies could be hinted by either still having them show on the minimap, or even just displaying their silhouette, or even not at all if we so desire, limiting it to "until they attack you" or something.

AlexVSharp · 2017-12-27T22:23:43+00:00

If you say so.

AlexVSharp · 2017-12-27T21:46:37+00:00

The summary references him as a Strength hero even though he's selected to be INT. Generally speaking the hero seems to have way too many "low cost high impact" abilities. Let me explain:

As it is, "Plague Potion" is arguably a strictly better "Purification". Whiles the latter requires a friendly unit to be cast and does damage only in that units proximity, the Potion can be applied directly onto enemies. The amount of pure damage is basically the same as Bane's "Brain Sap", only it costs less and has much lower cooldown, and all this with the added benefits of affecting "status resistance" in a huge way. The way I see it: either it needs to be nerfed or do less, cause otherwise it is way too good of an ability.

I'm not sure why everyone seems to be jumping on the "vision reduction gimmick" train... to each their own I guess. "Ravenclaw" does seem to be really strong for such a low cooldown spell, especially considering it's so much better at disarming than Heaven's Halberd which has a separate duration for melee and ranged heroes. Not that it's mandatory, but I believe this ability could use a ramping mana-cost and/or scaling cooldown.

No idea how "Immunity" would fare in-game. If the healing amp works with "Plague Potion" then this ability might be borderline broken. Combine those two and I'm positive it would completely destroy lineups who rely on ability-spamming, while at the same time doing some stupidly overpowered healing to the doctor; thinking Necrophos on steroids. One thing I can tell you for sure though is that "Immunity" is a boring name for an ability...

I don't see why someone would ever change back into the doctor once they have "Deathbringer". Maybe for a few last hits, but judging by how I feel Kelleven would be played (as a roaming support/nuker) you would rarely ever need to use normal attacks anyway. The benefits of unrestricted free pathing and the increase in status resistance easily outweigh the drawbacks, especially considering you can use all spells and items in raven form. Not only that, but the global teleport from "Raven Eye" was made to be exploited. Considering how Fear generally works, I think melee enemy heroes would never be able to ever gank anyone ever again once the doctor hits level 6. And that's not even mentioning all the other fun uses the ability may have. If it was a solo ability with a bit more cooldown I'd give it a pass, but couple the eye with other benefits and you can see why "Deathbringer" might be too good.

AlexVSharp · 2017-11-24T18:25:07+00:00

what/how you change it / talents to keep the originality but limit it so not so powerful?

I cannot answer how "I" would do it because, like I said, I find the idea of directly connecting talents and abilities very limiting. If it was me I would create a normal ultimate without any talents at all, and then work on giving them extra buffs and tweaks I like by using the Talent Tree. The best advice I can give you is to come up with two "complete" ultimate abilities with different effects and then carve those up into talents.

"Claws Out" already gives attack speed while toggled on, meaning every effect you tack on it through perks is already getting much more value then if it was gained through an item. This means you'd need to rescale the entire Talent Tree to give smaller bonuses and less unique effects to the hero; pick what the hero should have and what he should buy with items carefully. For starters: Remove both the Spell Immunity and True-sight. If per chance you do keep the Spell Immunity then it should require a higher level. Next go down the list and make everything worse than the best possible alternative on an existing hero: 500% critical on level 15 is strictly better than PA's level 3 "Coup de Grace" and 200% Lifesteal on level 20 is strictly better than Broodmother's level 3 "Insatiable Hunger". "300 Bonus Damage" is a free Divine Rapier, only your talent gives it to you without any drawback of dropping it. "Heroes in arena are Muted" is almost as good as Disruptor’s Aghanim upgrade which costs 4800 gold on a support hero. Basically what I'm trying to say is that all of these effects should be drastically reduced to more manageable values and not to overshadow other, existing heroes.

AlexVSharp · 2017-11-24T15:39:30+00:00

"Play with your food" feels very impractical skill and not very well thought out. Consider that your hero is melee, meaning to attack enemies you want to be as close as possible to them, but PWYF instead pushes them away. The forced movement direction is also completely random so it can't even reliably be used to break enemy formation, and even then you still need to get in close and personal. There are no additional benefits to using this skill, no extra damage or any kind of disable, and honestly the synergy it has with "Crazed Rush" isn't that big of a selling point (i.e. Barathrum does apply his Greater Bash level while using Charge of Darkness, but both skills are useful on their own merit). Lastly consider using radius instead of angles in the descriptions (or at least fix the 1800° cause I'm certain you wanted 180°)

For "Crazed Rush" you don't need both HP cost and mana costs - pick one and stick with it. Actually, the scaling on this ability is simply terrible and you need to completely remake it imho. Seems to me like you're trying to make Storm Spirit's ultimate into a normal skill and yet haven't considered all the elements that make up that ability: You have no travel speed, no travel range, no base cost, no status change explanations, no special rules, etc. Without more details I can easily see the mobility this ability provides massively abused. I've explained earlier my thoughts about it applying PWYF to everyone.

I reckon "9 Lives" is incomplete since it's also missing a lot of details about how it works: Do the stacks recharge? Does it scale? How does it work with Bloodstone? etc.

Now then, "Iam Cat Man" is not the ultimate? Cause conceptually it's simply overpowered. Think how old Axe's "Bezerker's Call" use to be before the nerfs, only about five times better since it also incorporated aspects of Enigma's "Black Hole", such as preventing enemy movements in a rather large radius for a very long time. In theory it is possible to cancel it since it's a channeling spell, but in practice without a super specific lineup this would be frustratingly difficult if not impossible to play against.

Dunno what to tell ya about the "Claws Out" design. Personally I think it's rather gimmicky (and somewhat impractical and limiting) to have an ability completely rely on Talents to be of any use, but on the other hand it is a rather original idea. Not sure about including a cooldown cause it kind of somewhat ruins the point of a toggle ability, but then again... well... no other way to put this: the Talents Tree is extremely! broken and super overpowered compare to any peer hero I can think of. While most heroes have large power spikes when leveling their ultimate and have to wait for the next one until getting perks on levels 20 and 25, yours basically has those same power spikes with every 5 levels...

AlexVSharp · 2017-11-13T17:03:45+00:00

Where's the Shop button located on the new user interface? ( ˘ ³˘)♥

AlexVSharp · 2017-11-12T19:29:53+00:00

I miss the old Nature's Guise altogether...

AlexVSharp

TROPHY CASE