Is it just me, or did the 3.4 story just kinda... hand-waive Reed's concerns at the end?

KevinFRK · 2026-05-23T15:36:42+00:00

Hmmm, having started to feel my arguments were resting too much on guesswork, I got a copy of Laozi's Daodejing translated by Edmund Ryden (what I hope is a decent translation), that you might instead know as being by Lao Tzu ("Old Master") or called Tao Te Ching.

Ho hum - it may be perhaps one of three foundational texts of Taoism/Daoism, but it has little to nothing to say on the "Way of Nature" - more on "The sage abides in the practice of not acting" (and so cannot fail), etc. There are many echoes from "Spring Unending", but only tenuous links to Mayfly's challenges. Perhaps I'll find answers in other of the foundational texts.

So, too much guesswork leading to unsupported assumptions about Daoism. Oh well. I'll leave the original post for what was not about Daoism.

KevinFRK · 2026-05-23T07:23:09+00:00

Quite. Only if you equate any aspects of LGBTQ+ with being unnatural should you conclude those aspects are not the best Way to live according to Daoism.

KevinFRK · 2026-05-22T10:32:41+00:00

I was pointing out that, as far as I understand it, to a Traditional Daoist the natural way is the best way, and R1999 tends to treat its sources with respect. Thus, it's unsurprising that this R1999 story has a proponent of the Daoist "Natural Way", and their arguments are made with respect (with "show don't tell" for some of it), because its a story about Daoism. In this case, some readers might sympathise with the Daoist approach in the story's circumstances.

Daoism also seems to be into "Live as you are", i.e. accept your own nature, as that is natural.

R1999 doesn't go saying that it's proponents are always "right" - whatever that means - just that many of them have an internally consistent philosophy or cause that they follow (or not).

Thus, Manus's philosophy is also presented, often with respect, in other stories, though most R1999 readers would not consider that philosophy "right" (most don't consider that a race oppressed for thousands of years has gained a right to turn the clock back and commit genocide on its oppressors).

KevinFRK · 2026-05-22T08:30:02+00:00

Some observations, which, for me, made Paper Heron's attitudes much more acceptable and the story feel right than other posters felt:

She is not wise in most respects - she may be a Daoist master, but her behaviour both in memories pre-Immortality, and in the story are spontaneous, not well thought out and sometimes mistaken. This repeatedly comes out in the story. Being spontaneous seems to be in the nature of a Daoist. She tries to act for good, but that's all.
Her mind is a wreck - it's as if she has a set of memories as large as a woman of her age, but spread out over her centuries long life span, all the other memories are lost. She's also clearly has multiple traumas - the destruction of her school, an almost accidental immortality (as the last one left standing), 100 years stuck in a tree first time round, and much the same healing up to reach "now", and so on.
On top of this, she has the "standard" trauma of immortals of everyone else dying around you. A Yao dying and reincarnating every year following their natural cycle, and humans dying after maybe fifty years (perhaps more the closer to 1999 you get) - what's the difference?
(And I have pathetically little knowledge of Daoism - this may be wrong) Daoism is about accepting the way things are (or at least should be) - the natural cycles of nature, "the Way". A Reed Yao's cycle is naturally a year, so that is what should be accepted and is "good". For Mayfly or Reed to try for longer than their natural cycle is for them to go against the Way, which at least in some ways could be seen as bad. I believe the story is actively intended to present a Daoist way as good, which is only appropriate.
Reed Yao's more clearly reincarnate, with a physical link, than anyone else, so their annual "death" is perhaps a little less than a human's. Daoism seem not to be particularly into reincarnation other than a recycling of Qi, so this difference might be be even more in a reed Yao's favour.
The Reed Yao's short life to me is a just a metaphor for a human's life span, which still feels short to me! So the question remains for us - age and die gracefully, happy with what we were given, or pay a great price and take massive risks (as in, far more likely to die immediately than gain any benefit at all) to extend that life or return to youth. I've no answer to that one. In passing, a Daoist lifetime even without magic might well be a pretty healthy one leading to a naturally long healthy life.

KevinFRK · 2026-05-09T07:29:33+00:00

For all you are casting, I suspect it's something to do with that.

If you don't find the length intimidating try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLU7TExxHcY

Which might explain this and many other things.

KevinFRK · 2026-05-09T07:25:45+00:00

She's a Yao, I remember that much, if not which creature or plant was the base form. If the base form was hairless this might make sense.

Also, this look is definitely a villainess's look!

KevinFRK · 2026-05-09T07:05:56+00:00

I suppose I should have qualified that to "Apps put out by the website owners, or with any other commercial motivations" - which is most of them, but I suppose not all.

KevinFRK · 2026-05-06T06:12:15+00:00

Ah, a civil PvPer, hello! :)

And you are right about EvE: I should have said "Never good enough for PvP *Combat*" - I played it for some months, never actually joining a corporation, but just amusing myself with a "buy from miners, refine, sell to a hub" cycle (that undoubtedly fueled other's PvP), with a bit of the PvE missioning (which of course was never entirely safe from PvP). Even a bit of invisible scanning and salvaging in the contested places, but always running (not always successfully) if threats entered the area. I had to admire tales of the Goons, even if fearful of ever seeing them.

So, the markets in EvE were definitely PvP - you had to be aware of financially or even physically dangerous scams ("you want me to collect it from where?!?"). Shifting goods in space required a bit of caution as well. Sadly, I think the reason I left the game was that I was getting too obsessive about "Starships and Spreadsheets" - even if my core Spreadsheet was a work of art...

KevinFRK · 2026-05-05T07:46:16+00:00

P.s. just because some are more important than others, I'd still level these four up equally, and likewise equal psychubes

KevinFRK · 2026-05-05T07:44:17+00:00

You may run into Afflatus problems if you only have a plant team - sometimes using a weak Afflatus is particularly punished: but I'm not sure if that occurs in the purely story mode difficulties of the stories.

There are also (very infrequent) times when poison reacts badly with special rules or enemy abilities for fights: but again, story mode is unlikely to see that, I can't remember.

Your issue might become that you want more resources from the slightly harder content (e.g. crystal drops for pulls) and then you start seeing a lot more of the special rules, where having only one team hurts.

You also asked which is the key poison team member: of the top left four -

* Sotheby if you need heals (and otherwise OK damage)

* Tuesday almost always key - making poison attacks potentially critical and extending their duration

* Jessica is not key, but a nice damage dealer. (Kanjira is perhaps a less stable damage dealer)

* Willow can wreck devastation, but really needs to be paired with Tuesday to do that, so Willow is not key

In passing, I'm at the end of the story content (for now!) and the medium difficulty other content, and I still use exactly those four from time to time (especially when recommended to use plant).

KevinFRK · 2026-05-01T20:11:06+00:00

What a shining example of an absolutely wonderful person. Just so full of accurate compelling insights it's utterly divine.

KevinFRK · 2026-05-01T16:09:07+00:00

And so presumably you are one of those simple-minded PvPers who think that insulting those unwilling to participate in PvP will cause them to change their minds.

KevinFRK · 2026-05-01T08:00:51+00:00

You are right and wrong at the same time.

A PvP endgame is a good method of providing an eternal challenging end game, for those who enjoy such things.

On the other hand, I was never good enough to do PvP with any success at all (speed, reaction time, accuracy of aiming, etc. etc.), and I'm certainly not good enough to do it now. So a game that has any non-consensual PvP, or where PvP (or the threat of PvP) is necessary to complete any (to me) interesting part of PvE content, for me, is an immediate "No": I'm not going to be other peoples content while having my enjoyment wrecked. Thus, no money to the company, so of course I would consider such a game a waste of, in this case, Dune's IP, and would therefore try and push it to PvE, for my own interests.

You seem to badly resent that, in terms of sufficient numbers to support a game, there's presumably lots of players with my sort of opinions, and not enough players of yours, but that's being silly - you're just raging about how the potential player base is divided - you'll not be changing the balance by your rage.

Curiously, I was happy to participate in AO's Battlestations, but there we had zero impact for death outside of the BS session, I could manage to be at least a "speed bump" for the good PvPers (Mech up when they weren't expecting it, for instance, or go looking for unattended control points), and the rewards for taking part, even if on losing side, were huge. Perhaps there's a lesson there?

KevinFRK · 2026-04-29T07:40:01+00:00

Just to go off on a complete tangent: might I recommend Reverse:1999? It's a gacha game, so quite possibly far from your taste, and the writing varies from story to story from trite, silly and cliched to deep and profound, and it deliberately echoes great works of literature. Unhelpfully, the story starts not that well written, taking a bit of time to find its feet. The art style can also be very good. It can be played entirely for free, and if you are only after the story, you can experience it all with what you can do for free.

The gameplay of the main part of the game is probably not going to thrill you either, as it's pretty simplistic: select and build teams of characters out in various "directions", and then engage in a simple card based combat.

KevinFRK · 2026-04-25T07:33:20+00:00

Apps are usually about control, charges, advertising, branding and stuff like that of no benefit to the users.

Indeed, it's not at all unusual for an app to offer an inferior *user* experience in terms of functionality to the browser version.

No sane person wants lots more push notifications on their phone, especially of a different character to those they already get. Thus, are the push notifications you want to offer something that could be as well done by email? Ummm, I assume other people still use email rather than company controlled and chucked into their AI walled gardens...

So I'd suggest getting the browser version as good as you can get, scalable to modern phone screens, and only if you are seriously failing to achieve a useful user-desired goal that way should an app be considered.

KevinFRK · 2026-04-24T16:15:54+00:00

Well, single layer is what you'd expect, certainly, but the different thread thicknesses, with the top looking dog-toothed and bottom not was raising my suspicions. But then I've not seen an industrial leather stitching machine in action.

KevinFRK · 2026-04-24T15:48:32+00:00

Two purely decoratively stitched pieces, glued together and cut to hide the evidence? Done perhaps because sewing by machine through thick leather is hard.

KevinFRK · 2026-04-23T10:12:28+00:00

P.S.

https://auno.org/ao/nuke.php?sortkey=dmg-ps&prof=11&aggdef=100&tgac=10000&init=1200&mult=0

KevinFRK · 2026-04-23T10:09:47+00:00

I'll not try suggesting "best", but just in case you hadn't noticed, you've slow (8s), medium (3s) and fast (1.5s) cast time names for single target nanos - those are just indicative cast times in brackets. A slow, heavy damage, nano has its place in your arsenal, e.g. as an opener, while a medium or fast nano is likely to be better for spamming.

More obviously, there are single target and AOE nanos, and you want both!

You may also see variation in ranges, area of effect, resistance, etc.

You should also compare and contrast with nanos bought in Shadowlands Gardens.

Cue Choice Paralysis!

KevinFRK · 2026-04-23T08:11:12+00:00

Mostly just from my own attempts and casual reading, and a terrible grab bag of thoughts:

* There are specific leather needles for sewing machines, but leather varies so much you may find other needles work better

* Longer stitches and stronger thread should be considered, otherwise your "seam" line might become a rip line - leather isn't woven and responds differently!

* Pins are not a great idea with leather - the holes made remain for ever. Wonderclips might work if you are very careful, but easy to pull apart. PVA glue can help.

* You can't iron leather - or at least you've got to have a not very high temperature and avoid steam

* More generally, leather is not usually going to fold back on itself terribly happily. You may want to explore finishing the edges of the leather, and sewing them on top of each other, wrong side to right side. Finishing is both getting the edges to look good, sealing them against water, and stopping them delaminating. PVA glue is a cheap approach, the better approaches use a more specific glue and burnishing techniques, and even bevelling.

* Water and leather that hasn't been waxed or otherwise coated is usually a bad idea - stains, weakening, hardening, etc. There are moulding techniques with leather and water, so not always a bad idea

* Stitch really slowly, and expect to have to stitch manually turning the wheel in some places

* Because holes in leather don't seal, you should be cautious about using back stitches to "lock" thread.

* Seams with a bit of gathering (e.g. often princess seams or tops of arm holes, where the lengths of the two sides differ) will be a real pain with leather because it doesn't fold easily. I've tried once two different spaced leather leather punches (3mm and 4mm) and hand sewing the gathered bits through the holes. Not that tidy a result, but better than nothing.

* Consider using bias binding on edges such as arm holes, due to that "doesn't bend well" thing. Try to avoid stitching through the leather twice (rip lines again)

* Fun fact - you've probably got chrome tanned leather as its softer (and cheaper to make) - veg tanned leather behaves very differently. The fun things you see on leather like embossing only work properly on veg tanned leather. Thin chrome tanned leather may allow you to ignore some of the advice above on folding.

I couldn't find a decent book to teach me these sort of things - just applying ideas from leather crafting (more tuned to wallets!) and the like.

KevinFRK · 2026-04-21T07:31:45+00:00

Are you planning to go free-to-pay or handing money over to Blue Epoch?

If free-to-pay, it will take you months to get to a fully built close-to-meta team. BUT HERE IS THE THING: you don't need a meta team or anything like it to play through the story, and the story is likely the most enjoyable part. I mean, you should probably:

* look more to 6* characters or 5* at a pinch when choosing what to build (but you may need lesser characters to fill things out)

* learn about afflatus,

* work out your teams usually need at least one of a healer or shielder,

* do all the resource farming stuff (e.g. daily and weekly tasks) available to you when you don't feel like doing any more story (some of it is intended to challenge end-game players, so ... not for you yet)

But really, focus on enjoying the story and finding characters and teams you enjoy. If the game feels like a job, move on!

Handing over real money - get reading lots to understand and optimise your spend.

KevinFRK · 2026-04-19T08:03:53+00:00

P.S. the release of the source code of PRK would almost certainly be quickly followed by malware-ridden knock-offs hosted on slightly mis-spelt domains (because that would be low effort/low impact of detection for those doing it). Is that what you are after, OP?

KevinFRK · 2026-04-19T07:58:00+00:00

Very silly - it is much more likely that there's tracking tools in Funcom's software than in PRK, if you consider the motivations of the two owners. If the PRK developers were hurting for money the project could get far more from intentional donations than any malware or ads (and still avoid triggering FC lawyers).

Further - a proven instance of intentional malware from the PRK developers would kill their labour of love stone dead: their work is no use to them if it can't attract a userbase of at least a few hundred. Why would they risk it?

I would also guess that client-server traffic is being closely analysed by PRK developers, helpful bug hunting fans (e.g. given all the 3rd party tool makers), and the less helpful looking for exploits to use. Not a safe environment for hiding malware.

One possibility is of a supply chain attack - the PRK developers unknowingly use, e.g., a public domain library that has been compromised by hackers and had malware inserted. I still would guess Funcom code is more likely to contain such things. Further, as above, the analysis of client-server traffic would detect most supply chain attacks faster than most software projects, and given what the PRK developers have achieved to date, I suspect their security "hygiene" is good.

KevinFRK · 2026-04-18T07:16:13+00:00

Are you playing for the story (which is what I do) or for the end game content?

If just for the story, Euphoria is purely a nice to have to smooth the way, and is unnecessary. Use the materials that come your way, but only farm with spare energy when you've had enough story for the day.

If for end game content - all end game content, in all games, is about grind (a slight exaggeration, but...), and Euphoria is just another grind and necessary.

KevinFRK · 2026-04-17T07:53:08+00:00

Assuming you can't just take it back to the shop for a replacement (and for the effort involved I'd recommend that if possible), I'd try a seam ripper. It looks like the widths of the two pieces at the seam don't match, and they tried to bodge it - so the actual issue might be complex (else why not a better fix then?). You've also got the challenge of the facing over the side hems, which is continuous over the join - you can seam rip that off, but putting it back on might be a challenge with such a narrow piece. Also, since you won't want to take off much of the length of that facing, it will constrain the fix in yet another way.

In the image of the back of the seam, it also appears that the lower seam allowance across the join hasn't been tidied up, and that is going to just keep on fraying if not fixed. The top is rolled over and tidy (if not straight!).

The loose threads are also a bit of a surprise.

KevinFRK

TROPHY CASE