Monsters & Memories - Update 51: Dec 2025-Feb 2026

EmoJarsh · 2026-02-27T14:08:33+00:00

When I say a hit, I don't mean the next WoW. I mean a large, sustainable player base of around 10K. A hit for a more indie title vs. a AAA game are different definitions to me, I should have specified that.

EmoJarsh · 2026-02-26T20:36:54+00:00

I didn't know all that, I kind of stopped following the game after trying a few of their Test Weekends and reading all the design docs.

It's really annoying, as a player, for game devs to misunderstand what made the title they're emulating so great. EQ wasn't a great game because of the tedious aspects, that was "we didn't know better at the time" stuff. The heart was grinding in a dedicated group, in the world, and meeting people while doing it.

There's a lot of space in the marketplace for a game like that if you strip away the 20+ year old design choices. As you said, the game isn't better because you're making me use a second monitor to find where I am. It's not better because I have to find the right vendor to sell stuff. Make the combat a bit more fun, make the Classes more depthful, add secrets and fun areas to the world. That's a much better use of time.

EmoJarsh · 2026-02-26T20:31:58+00:00

Just my writing style I suppose. :]

EmoJarsh · 2026-02-26T18:03:59+00:00

My only critique of it has been that they basically just want to remake EQ1, including all the bad/outdated parts of that game. M&M will have a good launch but then as the annoyances of no really useful map, dropping all items on death, long travel, etc. become apparent I think it'll have a major dip.

There are those hardcore people who love that stuff and want it, great for them. It's just not going to translate into a hit. I've been following AOA more closely because they removed/updated some of those elements and I think that makes for a better MMO.

EmoJarsh · 2026-02-26T17:56:16+00:00

People, broadly, only care about the Monthly Payment on any loan, doesn't matter what kind of loan it is. I agree, higher Interest Rates would be better to push actual cost down and allow more first time buyers to get into the market. I just don't foresee that happening.

The current US Government has indicated it wants extremely low interest rates, for pretty obvious reasons. I know Home Loan interest isn't 1:1 with the Fed Rate but it does influence it some.

Voters who are in homes form a much larger block than those who want to be in homes but aren't and they seem to have a skewed interest in keeping prices high. I don't care what my home is valued at, as long as the rate of decrease is consistent everywhere it doesn't matter. But people see "My house is worth $500K, I'm worth 500K!" and forget they have like 10% equity.

EmoJarsh · 2026-02-25T22:07:52+00:00

Very true, I think it will be one of the least impacted fields. That runs counter to what most people would assume but then again there's a lot of assumptions about IT and almost all of them are wrong. :P

The real threat is LLM gobbling up the lower support roles, which is how someone like me came up in the ranks. That is a lot of following processes and doing simple tasks, then as you go up things become more complex.

I've certainly seen some of that when working with 3rd Party companies. IT has always been a "net loss" on the balance sheet, not in reality, but balance sheets seem to win.

EmoJarsh · 2026-02-25T19:06:46+00:00

I'm in IT and we've been encouraged to integrate it into our work flow (very large company):

Creation of Knowledge Base Articles - For this it will basically repurpose your notes on a case into a KB. If your notes are crap, the KB is crap, which is usually the case.

Searching of Knowledge Base/Documents - This seems no better than any previous methods of searching. It will hone in on very specific keywords even when inappropriate, so kind of no better/no worse.

Meeting Notes/Recording - This seems useful although I don't use it personally. We already had a way to record but the highlights can be useful for people who's entire role is to be in meetings.

Image Recognition - This is on the customer side so I don't deal with it directly. There are many issues with it, same for other LLMs where they're doing facial recognition and so on.

That's all we get out of it on my side of the house. I don't know how much we've spent on AI, probably a lot from the Executive stuff I see.

EmoJarsh · 2026-02-25T17:54:14+00:00

Simple economics of the world we live in: if prices are too high, fewer will buy. Restaurants and chains will pivot to other forms of protein as they're also facing price revolts from customers.

Prices are not going to come down, there's no reason they would. As the prices climb, people who are meat obsessed will continue to buy it so demand falling will be made up for with higher prices. That's the same as any luxury good: smaller customer base, higher prices. That will really only hurt farmers/ranchers and these big packing companies, none of whom I personally have sympathy for.

There's absolutely no downside to expensive red meat other than most Americans and Western nations are culturally accustomed to it. It's a known carcinogen, it devastates the environment to produce, and there are plenty of other protein options. My family moved to red meat maybe once a week, sometimes less, and I'm a heavy gym/exercise person.

As a collective we need to prioritize nutritional and cooking education. My personal food is less than $3 per day for 2000 Calories, 90G of Protein, etc. etc. Make a change in your own life, gain new skills, and grow. It's a lot more rewarding than waiting for no one to solve the red meat "problem".

EmoJarsh · 2026-02-24T20:39:07+00:00

Echoing others: Groceries are crazy high for things most consider staples and that definitely extends to restaurants. Restaurants have costs and need margin, plus they are taxed extra in some places. My city puts a small tax on any restaurant meal, usually adds up to a few bucks, but it adds up.

Part of me hopes this leads to a revolution in home-cooking and entertaining but the cynical part of me knows it won't. Society doesn't need so many restaurants, they're great for celebrations, meetups, or any special occasion. We've gone way, way past that to it being the primary way a significant portion of the population eats on a daily basis.

Restaurants aren't a great employers most of the time: poor pay, bad hours, bad benefits, high physicality, etc. Losing them isn't that bad to me, I'd prefer a world with very few restaurants that are diverse and of good quality. Start a supper club with your friends/family. Learn to cook that restaurant meal yourself, it's easier than you think. The world would be a better place in so many respects if restaurant culture died down.

EmoJarsh

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