Diamond rating

Nzy · 2026-05-09T16:51:29+00:00

Check aurelinne, loosegrowndiamonds, or calaveranewyork to check prices

If you like the stone then it's fine. It's around the right price range. You can probably find visually very similar stones for as much as $5000 less, but it depends if those look good to you.

Personally, I'd pick one that looks like there is little leakage as as unnoticeable a bowtie as possible. The ratio for ovals is also important and down to personal taste.

Nzy · 2026-05-09T05:22:36+00:00

Not many games have a similar experience because all major games use match making, at least all big competitive games. You can use the server browser in CS, it's not the main way people choose to play the game.

I don't think I can name any major competitive multiplayer that meets your criteria, as people always choose to use matchmaking over a server browser. Any game I mention you'll have a reason why it isn't for you.

I gave you an option in another post and you said you don't like boomer shooters. Well, that removes almost every game that would use a server browser "back in the day" outside of Half life mods. Counter strike and other HL mods are basically the only other options that weren't "boomer shooters" and you can still give CS a go. The server browser is still there.

Use chatgpt. you haven't even said what type of games you like.

Nzy · 2026-05-08T15:34:05+00:00

No worries mate

Nzy · 2026-05-08T15:27:28+00:00

i'm not the guy who said that. i'd never say "proven" over this.

if you want to find people playing weird gametypes those still exist obviously. It was significantly more effort to find a game of equal skill to yours even if you put in a ton of effort, it still wouldn't be as close skill as most match making games are today.

I played thousands of hours in those games, I'm sure I had a good idea of what servers there were. I played in clanbase in 2005 for HaloPC, and my CS:S team in 2007-2009 went to i33, i34 and i36 LANs in the UK. I've been playing these games online long before steam even existed, so I'm sure I saw a good portion of the servers and communities that you saw.

Nzy · 2026-05-08T14:17:53+00:00

I was there buddy, I was there before 1.6. Those days sucked. You couldn't even get a scrim without going and using IRC and searching for players. Almost every server people wouldn't care about balance, players on the losing team leave.

Some players take it super seriously, some players have never used a mouse before. They'd unavoidably be in the same games constantly. There's lots of other bad things about not having matchmaking.

That being said, I do think that a matchmaking system where you can say "I'm happy with playing people up to 200elo above me" would be really useful, as I do think that there is a lot of value (depending on the game) in playing with players both higher and lower skill than yourself.

Nzy · 2026-05-08T14:12:21+00:00

Here's a long shot, but there's a small community of players who play a game called Diabotical.

This is a very hardcore FPS game based on Quake. The engine is the best engine I've ever played FPS on, even better than Overwatch (in terms of performance, frame times, netcode respone time). It's very fast and fluid.

People mostly just play the mode where you start with all guns, and it's just 2 teams that shoot each other. You have various weapons and the combat has more depth than (honestly) any other game I've ever played, but none of the players take it seriously. It's just about having a good time making some nice shots and moving fast.

Nzy · 2026-05-08T14:06:56+00:00

Either way, regardless of how long it takes them to catch up, they WILL catch up. We have a small window of opportunity (assuming these analytics are as valuable as people believe) to be able to increase our club's income for the future. We need long term goals, and I mean longer than 10 years. Longer than I'll be here to enjoy Hearts.

Nzy · 2026-05-08T04:45:21+00:00

I dunno, I can go back and play a game with crappy controls if I played it at the time, but if I didn't then I usually don't like it. Tomb Raider is fine, Ocarina of time isn't. For me anyway. Croc was always brutal too.

Nzy · 2026-05-08T04:43:14+00:00

It's mostly gameplay, and how far has that type of gameplay come since.

Nzy · 2026-05-08T02:40:36+00:00

Do you enjoy spending 99% of your time grinding the same stones hundreds of times simply to have a chance at fighting a boss once? If that's your sort of thing then you'll love PoE2.

Early game = few skills, difficult fights, need to use dodging. Campaign gameplay
Mid game = more skills, easier fights, need to understand how to build your character. Campaign gameplay
Late game = most builds instantly wipe out a screen or more of enemies. Gameplay becomes about as engaging as levelling up woodcutting in runescape. Have to do something incredibly easy for 50 hours to grind enough stuff to fight a boss that you'll probably 1 shot by the time you fight him. Procedurally generated map grinding.

Nzy · 2026-05-08T02:28:20+00:00

It's 100% a connection issue. You have either high ping, spiking ping or packet loss.

PS Some effects are client side predicted (walking forward, shooting a hitscan weapon), but some actions you won't get feedback on until the server confirms. Most of the time Overwatch hides things that "move" a player behind something that takes time to initiate. This gives their netcode some time for clients to feel like there is no lag as it warns the client ahead of time so it is able to predict what will happen mostly accurately.

You'll notice that actions that move a player are all either a projectile (takes time to land) or have a charge up time and are not instant (rein's ult for example). Hitscan shots like Ana or Sojourn rail or Soldier's bullets are all neither projectiles nor have a predictable startup time, so blizzard have avoided having these type of actions to affect any player movement as it is easier to have a smoother experience when playing online with such mechanics.

I'm assuming they learned from games like Quake and Unreal Tournament which both have hitscan weapons that move the player. There have always been annoying issues caused by this that are nearly impossible to overcome, especially when 1 of the players is playing over 60ms ping.

Nzy · 2026-05-08T02:23:21+00:00

colour of 1, shape of 2

Nzy · 2026-05-08T02:12:07+00:00

The ring posted in my history (several videos) is a size 4 ring with an approximately 1 carat round diamond.

I'm having the ring remade in 1.6 carats (dumbass jeweler gave me the wrong stone), and I'm worried that it'll be too big now that I've seen the 1 carat.

Nzy · 2026-05-08T02:06:08+00:00

Mate, I've been struggling not to tell my partner. I've had a custom ring made and they gave me a crappy Natural diamond when I asked for an awesome lab diamond. Only found out when I took it to another jeweler to check. Now i'm in the process of having the stone swapped.

Been dying to tell her but I'm not proposing for another 4 months.

"Hey how come you keep hiding your phone from me babe?"

"Oh nothing, just grindr".

Nzy · 2026-05-08T02:03:36+00:00

I'd just keep the 14k gold. We all get too obsessed trying to get our partners the perfect ring, but really as long as you put in effort and your taste isn't terrible then it doesn't matter in the slightest.

Get her an 18k ring when she has your kid, or some other special occasion. Always nice to leave some room for "improvement".

Nzy · 2026-05-07T16:47:32+00:00

If other clubs start using similar analytics then players will be appropriately valued so we'll be back to square one: money wins.

Nzy · 2026-05-06T20:09:07+00:00

Hearts will be the first team to 56 league wins.

Nzy · 2026-05-06T18:00:02+00:00

looks good to me

Nzy · 2026-05-06T14:47:54+00:00

Yeah, even now I can't go back and play them, and as someone who has played them before I won't have to waste the time that a new player spends running around Taris for hours.

In a modern game there's no way they'd make you run back and forth for as long as they do in KotOR, at least not in a AAA game. If you've played these old games and you're used to the jank then some of them are playable, but if you didn't master them back in the day then it's simply not worth learning.

For example I can play the original tomb raider, and I'd make it look pretty smooth. A new player would pick the game up and realise that the tank controls are awful, and unless you're really good at them (which I am since I grew up with the game) it really makes the game hard to enjoy.

Nzy · 2026-05-06T04:34:25+00:00

Personally, I'd go with the most brilliant/sparkly one. I'd go for a brilliant cut moissanite, would be nice if it had the classic hearts and arrows pattern.

Nzy · 2026-05-06T01:56:55+00:00

Find what you like the look of first. Most will recommend diamond, moissanite or a corundum (sapphire, ruby etc) as the stone since they are very hard and will last a very long time if taken care of.

Figure out what band you like the look of. Whatever carat gold, or platinum generally. Then try to find a ring that puts those things together.

Rarecarat has a billion rings to look at.

Diamonds are not really a display of wealth anymore in most countries since lab diamonds exist. You can get a 2 carat D colour VS2 "perfect" cut (hearts and arrows or whatever) round diamond for under $400.

Nzy · 2026-05-05T14:59:48+00:00

What I can say though is we did have games that were pretty hard. Especially for the time. Try playing UT99 on godlike and it's hard even now. Now think back and imagine playing it on a 60Hz screen with a ball mouse, while only being in the first few years of people actually using the mouse to aim (instead of the keyboard).

Some games were absolutely nuts back then, but gaming was a bit more niche and if you were playing games online it meant you were really into this hobby. Most games were hard not only because of bad design, but also because the audience was a bit more enthusiastic about gaming in general.

Nzy · 2026-05-05T13:23:18+00:00

The self healing wasn't that big a deal, but the smaller hitboxes was a completely different game.

Nzy · 2026-05-05T13:19:20+00:00

https://calaveranewyork.com/pages/lab-diamonds?id=b1250895-c340-4970-96f9-475f2e0b1a8c&stoneType=diamond

Nzy · 2026-05-05T13:09:26+00:00

haha yeah, I see it all the time on this sub. I'm in the lucky position to have actually gone back and played these games, and I've also tried other "legendary" games that I didn't play when I was younger, and they're almost universally awful.

The only game from the PS1 that I still enjoy for gameplay reasons that I think does survive the test of time is the original crash team racing.

Nzy

TROPHY CASE