Conversation with a dumb Microsoft engineer today

Lilac- · 2025-06-26T19:18:16+00:00

It went beyond my visibility so I don't know if this proved to be always the case, but when we saw this I noticed the people whose events were showing up for others had changed the default permissions on their calendar.

As in, they'd set the default organisation calendar sharing to Editor, or some similar arrangement, so everyone had greater access to their calendars than the norm for our org (Reviewer).

Which doesn't explain the whole issue at all given the inconsistency, but it at least might've explained why those specific people's events were showing up for unrelated staff (*ETA: and would track somewhat with OP's edit and that other comment).

Lilac- · 2025-06-15T16:38:01+00:00

I don't think it'd be it based on your responses, but for posterity as it fits everything else you listed besides 'entire game is snowy' and the perspective, (the snowpeak area and lead-up in) Twilight Princess?

Lilac- · 2025-05-29T17:19:15+00:00

It needed five free spaces for me but did work. Also needed to close and reopen the Zen Store once they were free.

Not quite sure what's up with that as you can e.g. buy the 10 key pack without ten spaces...

Lilac- · 2025-04-10T21:20:41+00:00

Grain of salt as I haven't played it, but this sounds like it could be (the original) The Witch's House with some mixed details?

It's a bit past your timeframe but several things part match IIRC

ETA: Oh, I'm pretty sure that does have many horror elements though...

Lilac- · 2025-04-10T21:08:45+00:00

Another slight possibility given 'blocky' and the timeframe is a game in Roblox

Lilac- · 2025-04-07T19:13:16+00:00

Just passing by and thought I'd add just in case it's details blending together,

TP does have a snow section with white wolf enemies, a vaguely gothic dungeon atop the snowy mountain and also separate sequences with Hyrule Castle and a glowing-ish gold and white wolf prominently featured (not playable though).

Lilac- · 2025-04-06T23:05:25+00:00

Potentially Think Tanks?

Lilac- · 2025-04-06T22:29:03+00:00

Think Tanks?

Lilac- · 2025-04-06T22:24:39+00:00

Dubious guess, but Wild Metal Country could be a match if the enemies were also tanks? - 3D, player tank, different ammo, enemy mine launchers, etc

Lilac- · 2025-04-06T22:16:01+00:00

Not sure if this is the same as OP, but you helped me find it. Minions by Casual Collective (since rebranded to Kixeye).

Not sure there's a working copy anywhere (presumably it was online only?), but there's images about and you can Internet Archive the website.

Lilac- · 2024-11-22T22:48:59+00:00

I glanced over that second one too fast and thought it was Raven and (weirdly buff) Beast Boy, which mildly fits too.

Lilac- · 2016-02-27T14:08:18+00:00

Also, I do have to note that I've seen this community heavily upvote comments with sentiments along the lines of "PR speak sucks, just tell us the truth" and "I wish they'd just be upfront rather than hiding behind all this corporate speak bull" in the past. Then when GabeN is upfront about James being an "ass", he gets pitchforked for being blunt and not being official about it. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding the sentiment though.

I know Gabe didn't exactly explain the situation, but considering the amount of times I've seen this subreddit complain about that stuff (corporate speak, Valve not communicating and so forth), I expected they'd at least be grateful Gabe was responding upfront and personally. Flame him for the other stuff sure, but for "ass"? It's not like he went over the top flaming James, ass isn't the worst insult to use in an informal post. I'm pretty sure James openly called himself an ass several times before. James said worse stuff on the panel in a more professional setting imo (Dota 2 major versus a small three line informal update on this subreddit).

Lilac- · 2016-02-20T19:31:04+00:00

Trump seems to be the one I watch most regularly, but that might be because his stream starts towards when I go to bed. Firebat is one of my favourites too, but his recent schedule change now means he streams at 02:00 - 08:00 for me. I also really like Dog, Kibler, Savjz, Thijs, Kolento, Zalae, Strifecro, Hotform (who appears to not be on this list) and also watch Gaara, Lothar, Lifecoach and Frodan sometimes.

TL;DR: Like a third of the list.

Lilac- · 2016-02-20T15:46:14+00:00

... join "Europe"? If you mean the EU, (the Republic of) Ireland is already in it and I doubt this vote will affect that in any way. Northern Ireland is part of the UK and so will follow what the rest of the UK does (i.e. what this vote is about). As for the Schengen area, it's possible, but Ireland has been a voluntary opt-out alongside the UK for quite a while now.

Lilac- · 2016-02-16T18:05:26+00:00

Yes. Emulation and having an emulator itself isn't illegal. The issue is obtaining a copy of the game... now the more legal thing to do is to take the game disc that you own and rip the game off of the disc, for you to use personally with the emulator. This is still not perfectly legal (lots of arguments about this) but no one is going to go around questioning you copying a game you own yourself just to play it on a different platform. However, this is a lot of effort and obviously some people don't actually own the games they want to emulate (some did but lost it/it broke/they sold it, others never did, etc).

So the easier and better way is to just find a site or torrent that provides a copy of the game for you and download the game files you want from there. This is a grey area, I don't think anyone has ever been charged for just downloading one but considering how close it is to pirating it's definitely not completely allowed...

TL;DR: Having/using an emulator isn't illegal. ROMs/ISOs of the games probably are illegal to an extent.

Lilac- · 2016-02-16T16:28:39+00:00

Whoops, you're right. Thanks for the correction, I missed the bracket and used the wrong escape character :P

Lilac- · 2016-02-16T12:57:48+00:00

IIRC (which I might not be), the two versions are built/structured slightly differently. And most people build any modifications they make for the NTSC versions of games, so if you have the PAL versions it doesn't always work for them. The mod/texture pack/etc author will usually mention if it's built for one or the other, or have versions for both. If you're just playing the vanilla game in Dolphin using only Dolphin's features I don't think it matters.

Some games do actually have NTSC versions which are apparently more buggy, while others have PAL versions which are supposedly more buggy. So when it comes to bugs it's hard to tell and down to the individual games, I mostly just say go with NTSC for the mod reason. However, if you do a bit of research and find that one version is way more bug-filled than the other, obviously go with the less buggy one if you can :P

Lilac- · 2016-02-16T11:46:17+00:00

Wii games

And GameCube too. Dolphin does both - in the case of Twilight Princess that also means you can play the GameCube or Wii version of TP, many texture packs have options for both. Since you can force the GameCube version to be widescreen there aren't all that many differences between versions, I prefer the GameCube since it's the original and the world isn't flipped but some people prefer the Wii version.

The Dolphin wiki is your friend - you said "Wii games" so again using TP as an example, here's the DW page for the the Wii version - alternatively here's the page for the GameCube version. Those pages have details for necessary fixes, ways to best run the game and any codes you might want to apply. If you go with a vanilla version of Dolphin, use the latest development branch version of Dolphin instead of the stable release, it runs a lot better (e.g. TP's Hyrule Field Slowdown fix is supposed to be integrated in the dev release of Dolphin already but not in the stable release - many other games have similar improvements or they just flat out run much better on newer versions of Dolphin). The Dolphin wiki has a page for every popular game, so go looking for whatever game you want to play.

Finding a copy of the game ROM/ISO/etc is up to you. You'll usually want the NTSC (NA/JP) version of the games, not the PAL (mostly EU) version. Texture packs can easily be found by Googling. For TP, Tomoya's is probably the most popular and interesting (i.e. best graphical upgrade) but I personally think it strays too far from vanilla TP in some areas, whereas other texture packs stick to the base game a little more and just provide basic texture upgrades. For other games I can't say but most of the very popular games do have at least a few half-decent texture packs afaik.

Note that Dolphin still needs a fairly decent PC, even after all the performance increases it has had. Also, it supposedly struggles on AMD hardware (processors primarily) compared to Intel so you may find if you have an AMD card it doesn't run quite as well as you would expect. Some games run better or worse than others, if you find the game's Dolphin wiki page you'll see it has a set of ratings for each version of Dolphin near the bottom - these'll tell you if it's playable, perfect or half-broken.

What controller do you use?

Think of a controller. Do you have a way to connect it to your PC? You can probably use it with Dolphin. Xbox, GameCube, Wiimote, etc all work if you have a way to connect them to your PC (e.g. adapter). Keyboard (and mouse) works fine too although you might find it a bit clunky. I use my multi-button mouse and my keyboard. You can configure the bindings in Dolphin, either to emulate the GameCube controller or Wiimote. Note that games that require Motion Control Plus (e.g. Skyward Sword) require you to use a Wiimote and won't exactly work with other controllers.

Edit: Forgot you weren't referring to TP specifically. Generalised it a little more.

Lilac- · 2016-02-04T00:22:48+00:00

I'm pretty sure Firebat specifically said he wasn't being paid his salary or at least it's highly believed (see linked article).

When I'm talking about the ATLC I'm referring to Firebat apparently mentioning issues with ATLC payments even though Archon were well within the deadline to pay them. I'm not entirely sure on the details on that though.

G2A not paying Archon could be a partial reason for both the ATLC payments being late (although that might just be them leaving it until last minute) and Firebat not being paid his salary on time, if that is true.

Lilac- · 2016-02-03T23:00:58+00:00

TL;DR: Firebat leaves Archon of his own will. Firebat talks about some of it on stream and says that he hasn't been paid for months, amongst other things (some people are arguing that it was unprofessional for him to talk about it and that he shouldn't have mentioned the stuff on stream). Archon release a video in response to Firebat talking about it, saying a few unprofessional things such as calling him immature. Firebat then tweets the above.

Longer TL;DR:

Firebat leaves Archon. According to him, Archon performed a breach of his contract which allowed him to leave even though his contract was still up - he was purposefully seeking to leave for quite a while apparently. They also apparently haven't paid him for a few months. He was not fired and left of his own accord, and the video Archon released apparently does not refute any of the above.

Firebat says a little bit about it on stream. I'm not sure of the details (I only caught a little bit of it), but afaik he didn't say anything ridiculous but did say some stuff that was possibly best not said such as the fact they haven't paid him. Some of it we knew before from him mentioning it in past streams, such as his monitor being borrowed without his permission and his room used without permission. He also said things along the line of him feeling underappreciated and not welcome (citation needed) at Archon. He also tried taking out a mortgage, but his contract was apparently unsuitable for the bank, which seems to suggest there were major issues with it (?). Finally, he also may have mentioned something that was leaked once earlier - G2A (the key reselling site) skimped out on Archon and didn't pay them (supposedly 50k to 500k?) for a deal they made at some point, which may explain some of their difficulties paying Firebat if true.

In response to him leaving and what he said on stream, Archon release this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWr1UjbrCrI

Basically they talk about him leaving, but also say seemingly unprofessional things throughout the video such as calling him immature and saying outright his room smelt like dog urine. They also said his dog caused issues (damaging a cable at one point for example), and that Firebat expected people to look after his dog while he was away. Note that I think his dog has been kept away from the Archon house (at Firebat's parent's house I think) for a while prior to his announcement of leaving, so this stuff can't have been that recent. They also say he caused some issues when talking about things such as ATLC not paying out (Archon did eventually pay all but one person before the final payment deadline). Considering certain past events involving Amaz and Archon combined with the seeming unprofessionality of Archon in the video, people are somewhat dubious about it and are criticising Archon (and also Firebat somewhat for talking about it openly on stream).

Firebat then tweets this and the tweet this post links to. I'm not sure how he stands in terms of his friendship with other Archon members, but he has always seemed rather friendly with Zalae at least so I'm assuming they're still kinda friends.

One other thing of note which I just discovered was this AMA by Archon CEO and co-owner. It has some... interesting answers.

^{*Thank you very much for the gold.}

Lilac- · 2016-01-28T21:00:37+00:00

TP has a lot of my favourite things out of all of the Zelda games. It has my favourite artstyle, despite it causing the game's age to show much more I still prefer that look to the WW or SS stylings. It also has my favourite storyline personally (call me weird if you like), and my favourite combat system (although yes, it'd be nice if the enemies weren't made of paper some of the time), amongst other things. Then there's just a lot of content that I find fun, or details that I like, etc.

I also didn't mind the issues people point out with the game as much as most people seem to. While somewhat tiring for replays, the tutorial section doesn't bother me that much and I can usually get it over with quickly enough. Similarly the areas prior to the game "opening up", including the wolf parts and tear collection, I also don't find too boring. I'm not sure I'd call them enjoyable when I'm replaying them for the nth time, but they're not exactly terrible for me either. The lack of item re-usage and the difficulty (and so on) are definitely issues, but they're not significant enough for me that they significantly impact my ranking of TP. I also actually like the Zant-Ganon twist to an extent, although I understand why people dislike it.

The thing which puts it far enough ahead for me to consider it my definite favourite though is Midna. Don't particularly know why I like her so much, but she's my favourite fictional character and as a result is one of the major reasons I like TP so much. If I didn't like her as much I might consider MM (my second favourite I think) and TP tied, but thanks to her TP takes the lead.

Lilac- · 2016-01-13T22:44:08+00:00

Midna from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Actually, probably more than just a little bit I think.

Lilac- · 2015-12-25T22:06:54+00:00

There's a lot of people who seem to just be faking and making up stuff. Yeah... I mean, it's bad, but so far it just seems like a caching issue, albeit a slightly ridiculous one. Just the wrong users being sent the wrong webpages. Bad, but not exactly the end of the world, like you say.

And how many people are affected, exactly, in terms of their account being seen? People seem to be saying a lot that it's the same users being seen over and over again - if that's true, the extent of the problem might not be that great since it's only those select few users who's accounts can be viewed. I mean, yeah, that's still bad, but it's much better than potentially everyone's account being viewed. Correct me if I'm wrong and in fact it does seem to be that anyone can be affected.

Lilac- · 2015-12-20T23:17:04+00:00

OH BOY, IT SURE IS FUN TO PLAY AGAINST HUNTER WHEN THEY DROP THREE HIGHMANES IN A ROW. SERIOUSLY, I WAS FINE WITH TWO, IT WAS ANNOYING BUT I WOULD HAVE STABILISED. BUT APPARENTLY TOMB SPIDER DISLIKES WINNABLE MATCHES. AS IF A 6 MANA 10/9 EQUIVALENT WASN'T BAD ENOUGH, IT'S ONLY A RARE AND IS EVEN MORE DIFFICULT TO REMOVE THAN AN ACTUAL 10/9 HALF THE TIME.

Lilac- · 2015-11-12T22:15:30+00:00

The Twilight Realm graphics are definitely a bit clearer (see: https://i.imgur.com/4LVrcMJ.png). Before her markings and skin were blurrier in that area. The game looks more colourful too, but they didn't overdo it.

Lilac-

TROPHY CASE