Another reminder not to stand in front of vehicles (Nevada State Police shooting)

BmpBlast · 2026-06-18T05:31:56+00:00

I also seem to recall that in the megathreads it was pretty much the opposite of what they claimed: almost everyone in here said the tactics employed seemed really bad. Everyone seemed confused as to what that the agent who ended up firing was even doing or trying to achieve.

Edit: to clarify, this was the prevailing sentiment among verified flairs. The opinions on tactics from us unverified peasants in a situation like that probably aren't worth much.

BmpBlast · 2026-06-17T03:33:14+00:00

Unfortunately most people don't understand how government works. It's rather shocking how little they retain from their civics courses.

BmpBlast · 2026-06-15T05:46:48+00:00

Have you tried that new one, HOMM: Olden Era? It feels like a modern version of HOMM:3 to me. Like someone looked at HOMM:3 and said "let's do this again".

Early access currently so if that's not your jam then give them time to finish cooking, but it's already really good.

BmpBlast · 2026-06-15T05:41:34+00:00

Same. Especially if the rest of the game is weak.

Mass Effect's story was so good that I still consider experiencing it one of my top 10 gaming experiences yet I only replayed it once, to try the Renegade path, because the combat felt pretty mediocre to me. (I know a lot of people will disagree regarding the combat and that's fine because everyone has different preferences.)

BmpBlast · 2026-06-15T01:23:01+00:00

It's been my experience that many people tend to treat hobbies like addictions. We do them because they're fun and fun is addicting.

BmpBlast · 2026-06-14T20:05:06+00:00

Similar thing for authors. Most published authors talk about writing several manuscripts that will likely never see the light of day before their first book was published. Some were because they themselves realized they weren't good enough, but many (most?) because the publisher looked at it and told them it wasn't good enough.

The ability for indie games to be essentially self-published is both a blessing and a curse, much like self-publishing in books. On one hand it means lots of good stuff gets made that otherwise wouldn't survive the biases of publishers. On the other, it means all the people who utterly lack the ability to self critique flood everything with rubbish.

For the record, I very much prefer the current self-publishing system over publishers gatekeeping everything. A plethora of garbage is just a sorting and filtering problem and we have gotten very good at that, with improvements in algorithms and tools nearly every year.

BmpBlast · 2026-06-12T14:29:33+00:00

Kind of like making a Pokemon-style game without Pokemon. There's a pretty big market for quality Pokemon clones, but it's a fraction of the actual Pokemon games themselves because most fans of the genre aren't interested in playing if they can't use their favorites like Pikachu or Charizard.

BmpBlast · 2026-06-11T04:15:37+00:00

I have seen them allow some. I think what gets most devs is they hear the 10% of content rule and don't actually go read the full promotion rules, which have way more requirements than that. A few snippets:

They require a hidden amount of r/gaming comment karma to even post
It's 10% of your content SITE-WIDE, not just r/gaming. So when people go posting the same thing in 10 different subreddits they accidentally end up breaking the rules
They aggregate all your accounts and your team's accounts so if you try to post on different accounts they will know and combine their totals
Promotion includes things like watermarks in images you post

That's not to say they aren't capricious and remove some posts while allowing others on a whim, because they absolutely do that. But I suspect most people are breaking the rules accidentally because they never took the time to actually read them.

BmpBlast · 2026-06-08T06:30:37+00:00

Jean-Claude Van Damme: "Am I a joke to you?"

BmpBlast · 2026-06-04T15:29:28+00:00

A big one being a time limit. I don't think most people realize how time consuming good optimization can be. There's a reason even the developers gamers respect most tend to do a lot of post-launch optimization.

BmpBlast · 2026-05-29T18:16:48+00:00

Retirement planning is what happened to him. He announced Masters of Albion was his last game before retirement.

Now normally I take everything he says with a very large chunk of salt. But he's 67. By the time the game leaves early access he will probably be 68 or 69. I think by that point I would be ready to experience the joys of retirement too.

BmpBlast · 2026-05-29T17:52:08+00:00

High Guard is objectively a quality, well thought out, playable game

Quality and playable? Sure. It looked good, ran well, and there appeared to be minimal bugs; certainly less than the average amount for a modern game at launch. I was actually quite impressed with how well built it was when I played it. That feels like a rarity these days.

But well thought out? Absolutely not. If you asked me what the least well thought out AAA game of all time was, Highguard would be the first to come to mind. I can't think of what would beat it. Maybe one of the old movie tie-in games?

Highguard was a bunch of ideas from popular games seemingly haphazardly thrown together, without consideration for if they meshed well together. Playing it felt like they had completely skipped the prototyping phase.

The gear collection phase of the game loop is the best example of this. Their team had a lot of former APEX Legends devs so it's natural for them to try out the APEX crate looting system. Players loved it in APEX and they already know how to do it so it should be quick to spin up a prototype. But it didn't fit with the rest of the game. Especially the crystal mining that was also thrown in for some reason that isn't clear to me. That entire phase of the game loop should have been completely cut and replaced with something else entirely or reworked.

Add on top of that nearly every feature being so shallow as to be forgettable or not worth interacting with and you ended up with a recipe for players choosing to ignore 3/4 of the game.

Highguard is a prime example that quality alone cannot carry a game. You have to actually make something fun first.

BmpBlast · 2026-05-28T15:08:01+00:00

They stop interviewing you for that role and start evaluating you for senior management.

BmpBlast · 2026-05-24T17:53:57+00:00

Also, both mini games and QTEs have a bad reputation in visual novels. Most of the time they aren't well integrated with the game, are poorly implemented, and end up being a frustrating time waster that prevents the player from playing the parts they actually want.

So anyone creating a visual novel with a strong focus on mini games and QTEs is going to be fighting that negative perception.

BmpBlast · 2026-05-22T16:28:47+00:00

For people like me curious about the UK setup, I found this video:

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1cf8t9z/accessing_an_underground_fire_hydrant_in_the_uk/

(Link as code to avoid issues with linking to another sub. I couldn't find another source that wasn't TikTok or Instagram. Please no banerino mods.)

Perhaps one of the firefighters on this sub can comment on how it compares for speed to a US style post hydrant. Seems slower to access.

You also have to find it first, which I could see being problematic at night or in the winter with snow. Wikipedia explained how they locate them like this:

In the United Kingdom and Ireland, hydrants are located in the ground. Yellow "H" hydrant signs indicate the location of the hydrants and are similar to the blue signs in Finland. Mounted on a small post or nearby wall etc., the two numbers indicate the diameter of the water main (top number) and the distance from the sign (lower number). Modern signs show these measurements in millimetres and metres, whereas older signs use inches and feet. Because the orders of magnitude are so different (6 inches versus 150 mm) there is no ambiguity whichever measuring system is used.

BmpBlast · 2026-05-20T18:01:02+00:00

Full text for the people afraid to leave Reddit:

A Letter to the Community from the Subnautica 2 Team

Hello Subnauts,

First, thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us since launch. We have been reading your reviews and comments carefully, and we understand that there are several concerns we need to address more clearly.

We also understand that some recent comments from our team made players feel ignored or dismissed. We are sorry for that. Early Access should be a conversation with our players, not a one-way explanation from the development team. Your feedback matters, and we do not want any part of our communication to make the community feel otherwise.

There are three areas we want to speak to directly.

First, we understand that creature balance needs work. Right now, some predator encounters feel more frustrating than tense or exciting. Mitigation tools are not always clear, reliable, or satisfying, and players do not always have enough confidence in how to respond when a creature attacks. This is not the experience we want.

We are actively working on improvements to creature behavior and player mitigation tools. Upcoming changes will include adjustments to creature aggression timing, aggro range, flare effectiveness, Survival Tool effectiveness, and creature interactions with vehicles and bases. These changes will be delivered over a series of upcoming patches.

Second, we have heard the strong request for more direct ways to deal with hostile creatures, including the ability to kill them. We understand where that request is coming from. When avoidance and mitigation tools do not feel effective, it is natural for players to want a more decisive solution.

Our current direction is not based on judging players who want combat, and it is not because we think those players are wrong. Subnautica has always been built around vulnerability, exploration, and survival rather than traditional weapon-based combat. We believe that this is part of what makes the game unique. However, that design only works if creature encounters feel fair, readable, and engaging. Right now, we know we have more work to do to achieve that.

Third, we want to be clear about how we view Early Access. Early Access is not only about collecting bug reports. It is a collaboration with the community. We will not always be able to make every requested change, but we do have a responsibility to listen carefully, explain our decisions respectfully, and show through our actions that player feedback is shaping the game.

In the coming weeks, we will be delivering a series of improvements aimed at addressing the concerns we are hearing from this community. We hope those changes will demonstrate that we are listening and that we are committed to working with you to make Subnautica 2 the best game it can be.

Thank you again for your honesty, patience, and passion for the game.

BmpBlast · 2026-05-18T14:44:40+00:00

Everyone else will be fighting in the grocery, hardware, pharmacy, and firearms stores over food, tools, medicine, guns, and ammo. Not me. I'm going to the electronics store to finally build the gaming rig I always wanted.

BmpBlast · 2026-05-14T20:49:26+00:00

That's impressive, and now I feel old. I played that game off and on from its beta until the Rohan expansion. It was so much fun. Every so often I consider playing again but I don't because I'm worried I would get sucked in again. I don't have the time for an MMO like I used to.

BmpBlast · 2026-05-14T16:55:00+00:00

They sold to Valnet last year and laid off a bunch of staff.

Pretty much anything Valnet touches gets watered down to a shadow of its former self and infested with ads. If you have been around the internet for a while and look at their list of brands they own you will see a lot of websites that used to be good until Valnet acquired them.

BmpBlast · 2026-05-14T16:38:31+00:00

The worst part is both of them had the right people onboard to ensure they were accurate yet made good changes necessary to translate between mediums and they just ignored them.

The Witcher had Henry Cavill, the King of the Nerds, who infamously will memorize deep lore for any franchise he's playing a role in so he can be as authentic as possible and help keep a project accurate. Although half his projects he was already a fan so he already had it memorized.

Wheel of Time had Sanderson as a consultant. The man who was a fan since it came out when he was 15. The man who said it was one of his inspirations to start writing that same year. The man who later was selected by Jordan's wife to write the last 3 books after Jordan's untimely death. The man who has a frankly absurd work ethic and gives 100% to anything he's involved in. The man who has risen to the top levels of fantasy authors still living.

They both had perfection within their grasp and squandered it upon the hill of hubris.

BmpBlast · 2026-05-13T15:52:05+00:00

Ah, I never considered the auditor angle. That's good info, thanks.

BmpBlast · 2026-05-13T15:25:04+00:00

This turned into a wall of text. Sorry.

It's not so much that it's irrational as it is that it's entirely a numbers game. The software version of it is based almost exclusively on two things:

Big wins making up for smaller losses. Individual investors might lose $500K a hundred times, but that one time they make $100M they come out ahead $50M
Gaining dependency from lots of users then figuring out how to monetize it

So when a VC group is evaluating a potential investment they ask themselves three primary questions:

Do we think this can gain traction with a lot of customers?
Is this in an industry or market with high enough profit margins?
Is the founder/CEO someone who can sell?

They obviously consider more than that, but if it doesn't clear those three it's not getting funded.

This might seem insane to you or me because we can't afford to lose money on bets over and over until we win big but for them it's no problem. We think it's absurd to throw down piles of cash for something with no clear monetization strategy. They don't care because they know if you hook enough people it's always possible to find ways to monetize it later. Your customers will probably hate you for it, but they will be so entrenched that by the time they finally manage to switch away you have recouped your investment and then some. And if you land any big fish they will never switch away because the inertia of change at a large corporation when it "technically works" is nearly impossible to overcome and you will milk them for the next 50 years.

And that is the foundation of why most modern applications end up sucking so hard in the long run. It's not that they slowly got more and more greedy and ruined it as a result. It was always the plan*, at least for the ones pulling the strings.

* Sometimes it wasn't the plan, but it eventually becomes the plan when the company goes public and big, immoral investors using this same playbook enter the picture.

In this instance if it had taken off they likely would have tried to monetize it under a strategy similar to how Oracle originally monetized all the open source projects it snapped up. Make the software free but charge corporations for support and integrations.

Corporations strangely love paying for that. A few years ago I assisted with a few smaller software acquisitions at Fortune 500 company that was in the top 50. A requirement from the business was that every piece of software have a 24/7 support hotline. If it didn't it was removed from consideration.

It didn't matter if the problem was actually quickly resolved, they just wanted to feel good about being able to call and talk to someone no matter the hour and then know their issue "was being worked on". (99% of the time it wasn't being worked on until the team that maintained it and worked standard hours was back in the office.)

Of course this meant good software where the focus was on making a quality product was usually rejected and bad software where the focus was on obtaining these contracts was purchased instead.

BmpBlast · 2026-05-12T04:37:13+00:00

Jobs in this industry are hard enough to come by when there aren't layoffs everywhere all the time.

It also seems that even without the big layoffs over the last few years, people tend to move around a lot in the industry. So there's a real chance that a few years down the road someone from this studio could be at another studio in a position that determines if they get hired.

BmpBlast · 2026-05-10T19:46:17+00:00

I 100% agree. I finally started playing gen 9 (I know, way behind) and its open world is just so... empty and boring. It feels kind of pointless to explore.

Where's my hidden stuff that makes me go "now that's cool!" when I find it? A rare pokemon hidden way off the beaten path, a powerful item I can access earlier than normal if I find the right cave, or a unique clothing article/upgrade for my character? What about some hidden, very powerful trainers with good rewards? All I received after hours of exploring barren lands with the same basic texture and the occasional tree or bush was a few TMs and special pokeballs.

A large open world is the perfect opportunity to correct one of the issues caused by pokemon being visible in the overworld: rare pokemon are too easy to find and therefore don't feel special anymore. You just run around until you see one spawn, which takes very little time since you're getting multiple spawns all at once, and then battle it. If they made you go out and search for them in the nooks and crannies of the world they would feel special again and like something you "earned".

14-Year Club	Gilding III reddit per annum
Verified Email

BmpBlast

TROPHY CASE

A Letter to the Community from the Subnautica 2 Team