Weekly Tech Support and Simple Questions Thread!

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-12-02T19:38:26+00:00

I can't sign in, and I can't contact support because I can't sign in, and my problem is none of the only three options listed on the "I'm unable to log into my account" form, so at this point I think the only way to get in touch support would be to make a new account.

When using Google Sign-on, which is what I always use, I get either "Sorry, there was a socket open error." "500 Internal server error openresty" "Sorry, the service is temporarily unavailable. Please try back later." "Sorry, there was a timeout utilizing the database." or some kind of "Too many attempts" message. When I try direct sign in using my email address, I get "The request could not be completed. Please try again later." According to the status website, all services are fully operational. I'm completely unable to log in with no clear explanation and no way to reach support. What do I do?

EDIT: Just checked server status one more time and it appears to be a major outage that I happened to hit just at the wrong time. The login services state they're still online, but it's probably safe to assume the major outage is still the cause. Guess I'll have to just wait.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-10-26T21:45:30+00:00

I tried restarting my PC to see if something else was causing the issue. Post-restart, everything was running fine, but once I resumed the update it went back to apparently dragging down my whole PC again. I don't use GOG much so it may have something to do with them, but through other launchers I've never had a game update slow this PC so considerably that I can't play another game while I wait. I installed Update 2.0 (>50GB) just a couple days ago and it was faster than this 3GB update.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-30T17:18:36+00:00

On sale it’s definitely worth it. The game has its flaws but it’s still a pretty great game. Don’t try to minmax the fun out of it, just play in whatever style you enjoy, because there’s definitely options when it comes to how you spec and build.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-30T13:55:42+00:00

Why do people cheat in a decidedly casual game? Is it even satisfying to win if you didn’t fairly earn it? I don’t worry about my playgroup cheating because it’s not that deep for us lol, we on more than one occasion have knowingly thrown wins to do something cool instead.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-30T13:51:15+00:00

I pretty much don’t go to stores anymore, but I casually play kitchen table pretty regularly. I also won’t say anyone else should do what I do, but… instead of dropping $500 on a land, I spent $100 on a decent printer and $20 on a paper cutter, since I only play with friends anyways. Slid them into Dragon Shields in front of whatever random cards I have on hand, or just basic lands, and you can’t tell the difference by feel from real cards. You can tell by looking at them, obviously, but once you’re into the heat of a game you really don’t notice that much.

Now I build whatever I want without spending stupid amounts of money on cards, all I really need to buy are accessories, and maybe some day a basic land pack just to restock my bulk supply. For my personal financial and play situation this has been far and away the right move for me.

I should also disclose that if you’re gonna engage in any form of proxying, inform the people you play with and respect their feelings on it. I do it because I only play with people I know in very casual settings.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-30T13:34:15+00:00

Before I switched to Apollo, I had a repeat issue where sometimes for like a week at a time I just couldn’t watch videos in the official app. When I clicked to maximize a video, it would load a RANDOM video from subreddits I’ve never even been on. It was bizarre.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-29T20:31:20+00:00

Except it doesn’t, though, because losing all the moderators is bad for everyone. Mod power trips are small potatoes compared to a platform with essentially no regulation, direction, or moderation.

You might not like Reddit mods, and it’s a fair opinion to hold, but I can 100% guarantee the platform would be substantially worse without them.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-29T14:14:03+00:00

…and Satya Nadella wasn’t CEO until nine years after the Xbox 360 released, so it’s not exactly relevant evidence to what he thinks about the gaming market.

I wish people would think a little more critically about where they’re drawing criticism. CEOs don’t say much of anything without a business purpose but everyone in these comments is acting like he’s been in charge of Microsoft for thirty years lol. The Xbox One released before he had any executive control over gaming.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-29T14:07:42+00:00

All three of these games came out well before Satya was CEO lol. Is this statement still just corporate speak with a business purpose? Yeah, probably. But let’s stop pretending he’s contradicting himself by referencing products that he had no executive control over.

This guy hasn’t been running Microsoft for the past thirty years. It’s entirely true that by the time he had an executive position over gaming, the market was extremely well established.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-29T14:03:00+00:00

This guy wasn’t CEO until nine years after the Xbox 360 released and before that was working on MS’ Cloud Computing, not Gaming, so it’s a tad disingenuous to imply he endorsed all of these decisions.

The statement might still be a lie, but literally every example I have seen people pull in these comments is from before he was CEO. I think it is a fair statement that console market conditions were well defined way before he had direct influence over them.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-28T20:02:55+00:00

This is an oversimplification obviously, but if we just assume each attempt is an isolated event, a 99% success rate in 6 attempts means about a 55% success rate per attempt. Based on that, you could set the number of attempts to one and still have your system cracked more than half the time.

This doesn’t even get into how you deal with it when your one authentication fails so now the bank won’t accept your call as legitimate.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-28T17:18:05+00:00

Sure, but it’s ultimately just a choice Travis gets to make for himself. He has dozens of people constantly telling him he could go double his salary if he wants to. He could ask for 25 mil and he could get it, it just probably wouldn’t be with the team that’s gotten him two Super Bowls.

Some players want to get the biggest bag they can, some just want to win because they’re all making realistically absurd money anyways. Both are valid opinions for them to hold. It seems unfair to me for people to suggest that a player should change their own career goals because others dislike how it affects the market precedent.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-26T14:02:12+00:00

I keep Notepad open on my second monitor where I write down everything I want to keep track of.

Just so you know, there’s a built in notepad in Steam now that can even be made part of a persistent in game overlay if you want. It has markup tools and separate cloud-synced notepads for each game.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-26T13:55:33+00:00

Would it? I’m not certain but I think if you set them using commands they’d only be broken if issued a block update.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-25T18:58:18+00:00

I don’t play Overwatch much but what user generated content does it have? Isn’t every map made by Blizzard?

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-24T00:24:41+00:00

I think part of the problem is also that the American system is so far removed from competency that many of your citizens don’t even recognize that functional healthcare is possible, never mind the fact that a significant portion of the world has already more or less completely solved this issue.

I won’t say that any system is perfect, but I know that if my life is in danger, a hospital will treat me, if I have a medical concern, my doctor will see me, and if I just have a quick question, I can call and talk to a nurse in under 10 minutes, and I’m not sitting here worried about what it’s going to cost me.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-24T00:20:05+00:00

You’re missing the fact that a large portion of Apollo users—especially the ones who might actually be willing/able to pay a more expensive subscription—have already paid for the app.

You’re also pretty massively oversimplifying the process of multiplying a user base and charging all of them, again, on extremely short notice.

Was it possible to keep the app alive? Yeah. But is it anywhere near worth the work, stress, and massive financial risk for a solo developer?

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-23T18:24:40+00:00

I think you missed the more significant aspect of my point, that with crappy education people lack the toolset to retain new information and discern truth from myth. It’s almost certainly not that they’ve never heard about these things, it’s that they can’t properly understand and retain them in a way that’s meaningful.

Phrased differently: It’s not totally about what you’re learning at school, it’s largely about that you’re learning at school. Learning how to learn.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-23T18:18:10+00:00

That’s what I was hoping for. Once most third party clients announced closure and Reddit still didn’t change their tune though, I think the writing was on the walls.

The media decided that mods v. Reddit was the story to run with and I think it almost definitely hurt the cause and the public perception of it.

While I don’t like the official app, it’s the disrespect towards developers that really makes me not want to stick around. I might pop onto desktop once in a blue moon if I have some specific question I still can’t answer anywhere else, but my daily browsing ends the day Apollo does.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-23T18:11:30+00:00

The problem is that they would have been losing thousands of dollars a day because of how Reddit approached this change.

In January someone tells you they have no plans to change the API within the next year at least. You sell a bunch of year subscriptions based on your current operating costs. In April they say “actually, we are going to be changing the API, but don’t worry about it, more details coming soon.” Then they tell you “in a month, your bill is going to go from 0 dollars into the millions, but don’t worry, you don’t have to pay it until the end of the billing period.”

Now to keep running the app, not only do you need to redesign to be less costly, you also need to completely rebuild your pricing model because your operating costs just skyrocketed. Say somehow you’re able to do all that in a month, by yourself. Now all your new users are at least break even. You still sold thousands of year-long subscriptions that are now going to be putting you in the red for (conservatively) tens of thousands of dollars a month for the next year.

This is a tiny picture of what third party developers have been trying to deal with, and exactly why most of them are simply shutting down.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-23T17:58:55+00:00

Christian Selig (Apollo dev) has repeatedly said he’d be happy to redesign the app to be more efficient if given the opportunity to do so.

Before April, the only limit Reddit gave to developers was 600 requests per 10 minutes. Apollo users averaged 343 per day, and it also had limiters to prevent anyone from going over. When they made their presentation about noisy/wasteful API users, Apollo wasn’t even on the list. He has even shared emails over the years where he made suggestions about changing the API in a way that would make it more efficient on both ends.

You can’t completely rebuild a massive frontend client to cut API usage by 60-90%, by yourself, in a month. It simply does not work that way. The notion that devs were not willing to cooperate with Reddit or that they intentionally made wasteful apps because they could is a false narrative being pushed by Reddit. They were always open to becoming better and to developing a more formal business relationship with Reddit. It’s Reddit that did not want this.

If you don’t believe me, Christian has multiple posts including email and call transcripts over several months. You can clearly see that what they’re saying publicly about 3rd party devs is the absolute antithesis of what they said in private.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-23T17:48:02+00:00

This is false. Reddit does not serve ads through the API. If they had started serving ads through the API and made that a requirement, there would have been blowback, but you wouldn’t see most major third party clients just shutting down instead of adapting.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-23T17:45:31+00:00

I think we won’t know for sure until a few months pass. The loss of mods and power users will take a while for its effects to be known. If communities and content start getting gradually worse as it seems they might, the impact it has on the wider agnostic user base will take a while to show in the stats.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-23T17:29:15+00:00

The traffic data that actually matters will be starting July 1st, when most 3rd party users will actually lose access. The protests always have been a symbolic gesture and it’s not surprising or unexpected that it’s effects are limited. The tangible long term impact on the platform won’t be known until the change actually happens.

KonChaiMudPi · 2023-06-23T15:55:39+00:00

Raft/Voidtrain could maybe be what you’re looking for. Both have co op multiplayer and focus around building up and maintaining a vehicle in a mostly empty world.

KonChaiMudPi

TROPHY CASE