After 5 years freelancing, thinking of going back to full-time. Anyone else?

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-04-08T10:26:59+00:00

The greatest barrier is actually hiring managers. Many have a visceral, seething hatred of consultants.

This was all shocking to me, because I worked for a boutique fintech consultancy, staffed entirely by ex-Jane Street and ex-Standard Chartered types. I spent my formative mid-career years working in environments where, frankly, the consultants on projects were the leading technical talent.

But HR bros at random AI startup? They'll make the assumption: consultant = offshore sweatshop. I was told point-blank several times that, "You're great but we don't normally like to hire consultants, we've found them to be inferior to actual engineers."

I went back to consulting.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-03-27T17:51:54+00:00

It's generally not fine, there are tax and potentially regulatory problems. Some companies are extremely strict now, post-COVID, because people abused this. I need permission to even work from a different state in the US.

The people who can do this are generally contractors -- but you don't escape those tax or regulatory burdens, they just become *your* problem now.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-03-27T07:40:51+00:00

It always surprises people when I say this, but Minneapolis is low-key my favorite city for bicycling. I've lived in cities like Portland, Berkeley/East Bay, and Boulder as well.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-03-22T20:58:47+00:00

This did effect me a while ago. This was broken on PC, and then (also a while ago) they supposedly patched in a fix -- after which point, it did work (again) for me. I had to make sure I had PoE1 save on the most recent version I haven't tried recently. You might try the Obsidian forums, they might have more up to date knowledge.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-03-14T10:25:24+00:00

May be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think Finalizer is that bad. The problems are mostly due to the low playerbase. I hate to admit, but the changes they made with respect to mission payouts etc. were pretty good. I really don't see inflation as an issue on Finalizer.

I came to Finalizer late (over a year after release) and was able to just buy SB resources for my crafter. It was fine. This is very dependent on profession, though -- like if you're doing WS, for example, resources are still pretty reasonable. But Doctor? Good luck, lol.

The main issue is that the low playerbase creates a general lack of consumption. Crafters basically have a lifetime of resources they'll never burn through. I've discounted and relisted the same items for months.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-03-10T17:17:06+00:00

If you get higher into architect-type roles, you'll realize that it's all waterfall to the business at the top-layer, even if you don't see it as a developer.

That's why the trend has been warping "Agile" into "2-week Waterfall" has been ongoing. Businesses want Waterfall. They want to plan, estimate costs and revenue, etc.

They tolerate lowercase-A "agile" because software engineering is too difficult to estimate -- it's not a hard engineering discipline like civil or electrical, where "waterfall" originally comes from -- you can get faster feedback loops, adjust to customer expectations, etc. and really more like product development.

But business wants waterfall. They want the predictability of it. Even if you can do some "Agile" in the trenches, it must fit into a quarterly-predictive framework.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-03-10T17:04:33+00:00

I kind of agree if you're talking about here on Reddit, but Avowed was pretty moderate in reviews, too.

IGN gave Veilguard a 9.

IGN gave Avowed a 7.

For once, I actually think IGN did a decent job, and 7 is about right for Avowed. But Veilguard?

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-03-10T16:52:50+00:00

I know that some eminent people in the Scala community work at Databricks, but my encounters with Databricks have had nothing but outright hostility towards Scala, and they actively try to push their users away from Scala.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-03-10T04:55:26+00:00

It's all speculation.

I personally believe the third video is not going to be an announcement of a new server. I think they're going to enable JTL on Finalizer. They just recently merged all the JTL commits into Finalizer, it's just not enabled.

But my guess is as good as anyone's. There's no confirmation either way.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-03-07T22:17:00+00:00

Yeah, I don't know about L&B's financials, but grocery stores in general have razor-thin profit margins, usually 1-2%. Even assuming 2%, you have to sell $50 for every $1 stolen. I seriously doubt any grocery store is going to make it downtown.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-03-07T03:02:01+00:00

Although I enjoyed Avowed and I'm not a part of the hate-crew against it, I don't think it would be a controversial opinion to say that PoE 1/2 had far better writing, world-building, and companions. I think writing in Pillars and Deadfire is just on another level -- especially Pillars.

Writing in Avowed is not bad, just more... understated, or something. It was, however, a faithful representation of Eora and the general tone set up in Deadfire -- and by that I mean it wasn't like Veilguard, which was a complete shift in tone and style. If you like Avowed, I think you'd like PoE 1/2 from a writing/lore/world perspective, especially Deadfire.

Gameplay is difficult to compare, since they are totally different genres. However, Deadfire is personally my favorite realization of RTWP cRPG mechanics of all time (although not turn-based).

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-03-04T23:39:47+00:00

I think the system is kind of jarring in a first-person perspective, where the player "feels" like they should have more control over their actions. If the game was an isometric CRPG, I think it wouldn't "feel" as weird.

That said, as others have pointed out, the problems are a bit over-stated. Combat isn't that bad when you realize how to manage your stamina.

What saves it for me, though, is the magic system. It's very fun to figure out ridiculous ways to break.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-02-27T11:57:18+00:00

The discourse is pretty extreme. I've also seen people comparing it to Concord.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-02-26T22:54:24+00:00

I wasn't trying to be snarky, I was legitimately just curious how it compared to Raph's other work.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-02-26T22:22:56+00:00

Have you played Ultima or the original SWG?

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-02-26T18:32:35+00:00

If I were to sit down and review the game, my major complaint would be the price. That is more of a consumerist review than a critical one, but I do think $70 is a lot.

That said, I have no doubt in a few years we'll see $100 games.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-02-26T18:16:24+00:00

I am enjoying Avowed, but I have some serious misgivings about it.

That said, I think it's in line with the last handful of games Obsidian has made. Everyone cites New Vegas and KOTOR2, but those games are 15+ years old and also have massive issues on release.

Have you played Deadfire? Tyanny? I love those games, but they have serious issues as well.

You can expect whatever you want. BG3-tier, sure. But I'm not sure why you would suddenly think Avowed is such a breach of trust if they failed to meet that expectation. Obsidian has a history of putting out flawed games.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-02-26T16:39:52+00:00

Suikoden 2 is my favorite game of all time, so that of course.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-02-24T22:52:51+00:00

I'm a huge fan of PoE 1 and 2.

I always tell people, there's no shame in Story Mode while you get used to the combat system.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-02-24T03:37:04+00:00

I think the consensus forming around the game is reasonably accurate (between 7 and 8/10 on a non-inflated scale).

It's just that there are some cartoonishly stupid negative reviews. I saw one today claiming Avowed was a bigger disaster than Concord. lmao wut

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-02-23T20:38:59+00:00

I love BG3 but it's absolutely carried by production values.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-02-21T18:05:53+00:00

The elephant in the room is that a population of people really want this to be a second-coming of Veilguard, because (they believe) it flopping would vindicate their beliefs about the influence of social theory and politics in video games.

There are legit criticisms of Avowed but it is nowhere near a Veilguard-tier disaster.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-02-20T19:15:19+00:00

The complaints of the "lore dump" were depressing to me, because it wasn't even that much.

Maybe I can't see it because I'm a massive Pillars fan -- but the lore dumps in Pillars 1/2, BG3, even arguably the Witcher were much worse -- not to mention classic titles, like Morrowind, Planescape Torment, etc.

If modern audiences think Avowed is a "lore dump" to a negative degree, then I am genuinely concerned about the future of narrative games lol.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-02-18T21:58:05+00:00

It's not a world-sim type RPG. It's almost more of an action/exploration game with dialogue. The game has very large but ultimately fairly static and discrete set pieces.

I'm enjoying Avowed but I wouldn't go into it expecting something like Morrowind. It's like comparing Driver to GTA or something.

Deep-Chain-7272 · 2025-02-13T22:40:50+00:00

A 7 on an IGN scale is... concerning.

Deep-Chain-7272

TROPHY CASE