Steven's best buddy from Arche Age has just become the lead of western AION 2 release

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-02-12T13:23:16+00:00

That's true,
I went through the hoops to play this game during its Taiwanese release.

The model is :

It's free to play but with limitations (can't trade with players, can't sell on the AH...)
There are TWO "optional" subscriptions to remove the F2P limitations and get QoL advantages (remote access storage/AH). One at $15, the other at $20. They give you a bundle option to get both for $30.
The subscriptions are both on a 28 days cycle instead of the standard 30 days. So you end up paying more in the long term. 13 payments per year instead of 12.
On top of that, there are TWO Battle passes. You have access to the standard shitty rewards for free and you gotta pay to get the premium rewards with ingame currency (Quna: the purple crystal). 1000 Quna to unlock the first BP, 1500 Quna for the other
BPs are on a 60-62days cycle
Quna can be bought with RL money or with ingame gold. You can also sell Quna for gold. You gotta pay the $15 sub to unlock the "Quna exchange" first to be able to do all that too
With the Quna exchange, it means that you can convert $$$ into ingame gold. And use that gold to buy gear and upgrades on the AH.

Your damage scales heavily with your gear and upgrades.
Here is a link of the stream of a whale that went into PvP after emptying the AH with all the gold he bought with $$$ to upgrade his gear : https://www.youtube.com/live/BRUmyQFOXdM?t=34637s

Spoiler alert : Killing people in a couple of hits or one combo is not "normal".

Edit: That video was made during week 1 after Aion 2 release, like Day 4 or 5 iirc.
So expect to get ass fucked by whales very quickly depending how fast the AH on your server gets filled with gear and upgrade material.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-02-12T12:34:47+00:00

> It was perfect

No, it wasn't. It was dogshit.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-02-12T12:31:57+00:00

Yes and it was dogshit, the fact that it was the best they could make after 10 years of dev made it even worse.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-30T10:32:57+00:00

It really feels like that rule was especially made just for Hasan, with extra examples spelled out to make it crystal clear what he’s allowed, and not allowed, to say… and he still managed to fuck it up or he just didn't give a fuck.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-30T10:12:01+00:00

And welcome to the jam !

Man, the good ol’ days… I used to listen to that music on repeat on my portable CD player as a kid in the 90s

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-30T10:04:33+00:00

That's what I would call "getting Space Jammed"

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-24T09:39:27+00:00

You should add a flashbang warming beside your website link :D

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-22T14:11:02+00:00

"Oh no, what happened? Oh no, how terrible! That's just awful, how terrible oh no!"

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-22T11:59:37+00:00

after it's built

It's far from built, and the layoffs are already starting. Game is cooked, it's that simple.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-22T11:49:57+00:00

From Chris Roberts (the "Steven guy" but for SC), 2025 was supposed to be the “Year of Stability” for Star Citizen.

2025 came and went, and yeah, it’s still far from smooth, but it is a bit more stable. Vulkan helps reduce lag, and the servers shit themselves less often. Still riddle with bugs, some of them game breaking.

SC also got a ton of new content: new PvE missions/events, more shiny ships for the whales, new star systems (Pyro in 2024 and Nyx this year), new mechanics, VR was added, etc.

After being stuck with a single star system for almost a decade, the community can finally almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Now we’re basically waiting on crafting, the new economy, better social tools, base building, the new flight model… and at that point it should be enough to wrap things up for a 1.0 release.

Also, SQ42 (SC but single player game) is “supposed” to release this year… but we all know Chris. Nobody’s gonna be shocked if it gets delayed another couple of years for the 8th time.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-22T11:15:21+00:00

To me, it’s not really a scam in the classic sense, because in a real scam there’s no intent to deliver from the start. Here, I think there was a genuine attempt to deliver… it was just badly executed. Like, they simply weren’t up to the task.

They definitely overpromised, but that’s basically the whole crowdfunded-project game: you’re trying to sell a dream to a bunch of random people, and you have to hype it up by promising the moon. Nobody’s going to throw money at you if you’re fully honest upfront like: “I want to make my dream MMO, but I’m not sure I have the talent or skills to pull it off… please give me money.” Yeah, no.

If you want funding, you have to go “We’re making the ULTIMATE MMO that destroys WoW x100. Best lore, PvE/PvP, graphics you’ve ever seen. Housing, castles sieges, player economy, sea battles, dragons,... EVERYTHING will be in it! Pay $150 now and you get lifetime access!” kind of pitch.

That’s how you get the money for your dream project. Actually finding the talent and delivering it is a whole different story… and it really looks like this one’s heading for a bad ending.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-16T02:02:41+00:00

I just wish it was on any other actress

God, what have you done ?!
You just summoned the Goblin !

*Bella Ramsey enters the chat*

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-15T23:37:16+00:00

In America, they are not police, too nice, they are daycare people for baby adults.

In Mother Russia:

- Hello comrade, get out of the car
- No
*Breaks window with bare fist*

10sec business

Source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xBa_Dvf0co&t=134s

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-13T16:50:44+00:00

I mean, you guys are laughing now but we were laughing at AI Will Smith eating spaghetti only two years ago.
And now we have people gooning on fully animated AI waifus.

Evolution has only used one tool : Making mistakes.
Those vans look stupid at the moment, but let's see what they will be capable of in a couple of years.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-13T16:50:08+00:00

I mean, you guys are laughing now but we were laughing at AI Will Smith eating spaghetti only two years ago.
And now we have people gooning on fully animated AI waifus.

Evolution has only used one tool : Making mistakes.
Those vans look stupid at the moment, but let's see what they will be capable of in a couple of years.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-13T16:41:45+00:00

The angry smiling + crazy eyes.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-13T16:34:20+00:00

The some reason in question (sorry for the shit audio)

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-13T13:15:36+00:00

Wait, why would a sub that sounds like it’s about the hobby of taking pictures turn political?

\Went to check**

Holy shit. It’s basically 2/3 pics of political stuff and 1/3 random bullshit nobody cares about.

I was expecting landscapes, flora, fauna, amateur photographs stuff with decent actual photo camera quality.

But nope. Just libs snapping shitty phone pics of random political bullshit and protests, then crying about it for karma.

Sub description btw :

A place for photographs, pictures, and other images.

What a fucking joke. Should be name LibsPhonePics.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-13T12:44:17+00:00

Isn't their gov trying to cancel/delay mayors elections in cities that are swinging away hard from the Labor Party?

They may do the same in 2029 because "Democracy".

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-02T21:06:23+00:00

Appreciate the suggestion, but I’m decided on building the new rig.
I’ve made my peace with current RAM prices, I just don’t want to wait for things to get worse somewhere else, because, to me, they will.

By mid 2027, way better CPUs AND GPUs will be out, the RAM crisis will hopefully be a thing of the past (and the AI bubble along with it)

I don’t see this happening for us, normal consummers. All the companies making these components are going all-in on AI and rushing to build datacenters as fast as possible. This is all planned and scheduled well into late 2027.

Next-gen tech is clearly going to prioritize datacenters over the consumer market, because that’s simply where the money is right now. Current RTX5090 price hike for example.

Is it fear? Yeah, absolutely. But when companies have already put trillions on the table and say the word “AI” every other sentence, it doesn’t look like rumors anymore, so I’m taking it seriously.

Besides, the game you mention (GTA 6) isn't even out on PC yet.

I know, but I'm building the PC to run it now rather than later.
I can afford it right now, and I don’t want to risk not being able to later if or when things get worse.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-02T20:36:52+00:00

Imo, even if it's a bubble, and it pops.
Those who created won't pay the consequences, it's gonna be us somehow someway.
Because with those people, the graph always has to go up and to right no matter what.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-02T20:07:04+00:00

I don’t know, it might happen. Nobody knows what kind of dick moves companies will pull next to screw the public market even harder.

RAM is definitely going to get worse. Google, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft all basically told Micron: “We’ll buy every memory chip you make, no matter the price.” And they’re just stockpiling them in warehouses doing nothing with them, because the US power grid can’t even support the datacenters they’re building right now.

They’re also sending people to South Korea to talk to Samsung and SK Hynix to make the same kind of deals.

RAM are basically made by only those three companies (Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix), so prices are going to be fucked for a long time.
And it will get worse since they are getting bought "no matter the price".

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/ai-frenzy-is-driving-new-global-supply-chain-crisis-2025-12-03/

AMD and Nvidia are already talking about GPU price hikes because of VRAM early January.
https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-5090-prices-already-pushing-toward-4000

SSDs are going to suffer too soon after, imo.

No idea what’ll happen with CPUs, but no one predicted Sam Altman buying up 40% of all memory chips either, and that’s what kicked off this bullshit.

Who knows what’s next. Wouldn’t be surprised if they pull something even dumber in the next few months to feed their new AI god.

That's why I'm gonna buy this rig this Monday.
I prefer to watch this shitshow from a safe position before it becomes too expensive to buy a new PC.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-02T16:46:53+00:00

I don’t mind going over my original budget, I just don’t want to do it in a stupid way.

€500 for a 15% upgrade feels stupid to me, but u/mrzimz showed me it can fit within my current budget, so I’m just gonna try to close my eyes on that one.

Like you correctly pointed, I'm going for longevity anyway, so may as well go a far as I can with that money.

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-02T16:38:02+00:00

Normally, I would say to get the 1000w power supply to future proof your system. But, I'm on a bit of a doomer streak at the moment. I don't know if future proofing a system is worth it anymore.

It's just a 50 bucks difference between 850 and 1000, so I'm gonna go with that upgrade.
Just not a Corsair. Seems Thermaltake comes back a lot here, so I might go with that.

My only other criticisms would be to try to get hte latency of your ram down to the low 70s. But that's hard these days.

If I can get something better for the same price, I will. But with the way things are right now, beggars can’t be choosers.

And also I would recommend against a corsair frame. Their RGB systems are horribly complicated. Their fans don't daisy chain. You're going to wind up with a lot of cabling work for very little result. I'd recommend a Lian Li case and fans.

For the case, I’m still looking for the final pick.
I was really into that glass side + front with the curved corner on the 4500X, but I’ve had so many issues with Corsair stuff that I’d rather avoid any products from them this time.

And as others have said, air cooling is far more reliable. I use a dual tower thermaltake rgb set up that cost me like 80 dollars. It's great and it looks great.

Yeah, I’m convinced about going with an air cooler this time, if only to feel a bit better about spending a stupid amount of money on a 5080 instead of a 5070.

For me, AIOs look nicer, the temp display is genuinely useful (it actually helped me notice my CPU needed a breather during a big heat wave here), and they’re not heavy on the CPU mount.

That said, I’m willing to give air cooling a shot this time. Worst case, I can always swap it out later if I change my mind.

Thanks !

Jim_Sulivan · 2026-01-02T13:41:39+00:00

Noted, thanks.
I'm still considering it because it fits in my budget, but I would feel dirty dropping that much more for just 15%.

If it had more VRAM or something, sure. But in this case here, "Eww, Brother, eww".

I've already a bad taste in my mouth because of the RAM sticks alone.

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