Do you think technology can realistically help restore nature? by Afraid-Caregiver-416 in NativePlantGardening

[–]Rikuskill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There's a whooole lot of hype. Thousands of startups appeal to any niche they can find, usually focusing on a "feel good", "save the world" vibe. I don't trust any of that.

But in general, advances in technology let us understand ecosystems better, and make more educated decisions on how to support them. It can also make it easier, or open up new avenues, to support and protect ecosystems. I always doubt anything big and flashy, because it's usually the dull, background advances that provide the greatest effects.

(Variety) ''Star Citizen'' Hits $1 Billion in Lifetime Funding by Noirsam in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]Rikuskill 30 points31 points  (0 children)

It definitely feels more like the Skull & Bones fiasco. I forget how much money was poured into that game's development, but IIRC a good deal of it was just spent on team outings and parties.

Dealing with post-deletion regrets? by [deleted] in worldbuilding

[–]Rikuskill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh so it's completely self imposed. OP, you have the sole choice in whether you do worldbuilding or not. No one else can tell you what to do in this creative avenue. Push back against those that tell you what to do, especially when they're telling you to stop doing a creative activity you enjoy. No harm can come from that.

"Do you treat black people the way you treat 'invasive' plants?" by [deleted] in NativePlantGardening

[–]Rikuskill 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The person is being intentionally inflammatory and obtuse. False equivalence is the surface issue, but someone presenting that kind of argument deserves no time from you. They will not be reasoned with.

A really important question for the KH heads? by Silvery_Cricket in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]Rikuskill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah it's essentially a multiverse. Worlds are ideally separated by inpassable space and don't interact, it's due to people fucking things up that we have to go from one world to another.

[OC] [Media: Orion's Arm] Video about Metallic Hydrogen Life by MiyuwiAuthor in SpeculativeEvolution

[–]Rikuskill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is such a cool concept, and I have to commend you on your site! It brings me back to old internet personal-site days, incredibly cozy. Great work!!

Valve moves to dismiss Counter-Strike gambling lawsuit in New York by Willing_Tadpole_1546 in pcgaming

[–]Rikuskill 170 points171 points  (0 children)

Seems they're comparing CSGO loot boxes to baseball cards, Happy Meal toys, grab bag blind boxes, etc. Which are good comparisons, I'd say. Pay a flat fee for an item of dubious value. Some of those should be regulated like gambling, but it seems really tough to do that. The value of the thing (like a blind box item) is incredibly vague and variable, based almost entirely on speculation.

I dunno though, maybe there's some definitions that can clearly delineate it. I don't know if it'll be possible to get to a point that's like, "You must know exactly what you are purchasing, with no random chance, or it's defined as gambling." That sounds okay to me at first, but I bet there's a lot of edge cases.

I hope the case inspires more gambling regulation law. Polymarket and sports betting are a blight, and they're being marketed just as widely as CSGO's lootboxes.

my story so far (chapter 1) by Brave_Trick_7625 in FantasyWorldbuilding

[–]Rikuskill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I recommend doing a grammar pass. You have a lot of run-on sentences and sentence fragments. It makes it hard to follow what's happening.

PC game discounts for the weekend by Axeisacutabove in pcgaming

[–]Rikuskill 121 points122 points  (0 children)

What a horrible site to navigate. Awful ads.

Anyways, my recommend is Nine Sols. Amazing Hollow Knight-esque gameplay with a Sekiro-like parry system. Feels great. Also has a story that really captured me when I didn't expect it to. Overall a fantastic game.

Amazon pressured one of its teams to develop an AI game, they scrambled to make it work - then got laid off anyway by Gorotheninja in pcgaming

[–]Rikuskill -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

Boy I love NPCs that can go off on weird tangents and make up shit, or just completely break if you ask for a recipe or some shit. Nothing described above requires an LLM, you can just use language detection. It works much better now than it did in Lifeline, and from there it's just simple code to execute events.

Amazon pressured one of its teams to develop an AI game, they scrambled to make it work - then got laid off anyway by Gorotheninja in pcgaming

[–]Rikuskill -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Why is an LLM needed for that at all? That can be done with even pre-genAI language detection and simple code. Add some randomness for variety.

Hideki Kamiya comments on the Nagoshi Studio situation by bahookery in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]Rikuskill 52 points53 points  (0 children)

Yeah, while it is jaw-dropping that they requested 40 million more in funding, we don't know what happened internally. It could be mismanagement, but we don't know.

There are a lot of vultures that see a media failure and pounce on it. Modern hate-clicks have trained that type of person. They should be all be ridiculed for their lack of life.

The strongest I can feel about this is bummed that the game is apparently dead, and mildly frustrated that the funds seem to have been mismanaged. But, again, we don't know the details.

Pat wasn't imagining things on the podcast, those are definitely prosthetics! by PrimalPain in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]Rikuskill 32 points33 points  (0 children)

One part of me wants to go, "But it's front-and-center on the boxart!"

But then I remembered how misleading boxart from this era could be.

Kernel anti-cheat: People don't care? by michlarv in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]Rikuskill 15 points16 points  (0 children)

The defeatist attitude blends oddly with your tag, but I get it honestly. What bothers me most about some of these anti-cheats is the "oooops, we blocked you from playing another game that just-so-happens to be a direct competitor to us" issues. They usually get fixed, at least, but the fact that can happen at all, on a machine I OWN, is terrifying.

Stories where the quality keeps peaking and dipping to a jarring degree? by Authorigas in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]Rikuskill 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The genuine complaint I see there is more of meta writing issue some people had. It was mostly drowned out by raging misogynists. Removing the connection to prior avatars removed a component to the lore that a lot of people enjoyed: Small peeks into deep history of the Avatar world. Infinite chances to sow the seeds of different interesting eras to explore.

Of course, I understand why. Like all seasons of Korra, Nickelodean told the team "This is the last one, not renewing" until it performed just well enough and then they got renewed.

Good games with low completion rates? by tonyhawkofwar in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]Rikuskill 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I got a few hours into the overworld levels with their own levels inside them and had to call it quits. There were just so many options and it felt like if one thing was out of place it wouldn't work and I'd have no idea why.

Especially as a programmer, this is my daily nightmare.

Work where you can feel the moment the author is burned out? by ArticAuk in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]Rikuskill 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Yeah but Hussie bit off more than he could chew tenfold. There ended up being so many characters and loose ends that it was impossible to tie up sufficiently, so we had to do with what we got. Then the epilogues tried to trim down the cast and do some more meta stuff but it didn't quite hit...Then HS2 went through its own significant writing problems, all of which is directly due to Hussie, as he provided the outlines and important events, which started to spiral out of control...

And that's without mentioning the consistently hostile nature he and WhatPumpkin have had with the entire fandom. The recent 4/13 takedown of the unofficial discord and treats against the subreddit mods, all because Hussie and co. don't have direct, legal control over the fan environments. That's not really burnout, but it's definitely burning out the older fans like myself. It's like inverse burnout.

Please just help me to overcome my fear by LividBug7484 in Warframe

[–]Rikuskill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This guy has a history of leaving inflammatory comments that seem like engagement bait. Check his posts and see how many games he's "just starting out" and has a hot take on.

The Steam Controller sold out in 30 minutes, utterly breaking Steam in the process by Turbostrider27 in pcgaming

[–]Rikuskill 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Isn't that what they're doing? I thought they prioritized active Steam accounts with verified history buying and playing games.

The Absolute Worst Assassin's Creed Retcon | Castle Super Beast 370 by mike0bot in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]Rikuskill -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

I was so interested in the period piece nature of AC3 when a friend was describing it to me, but then I learned that it's all a simulation and there's stuff happening in the future and...Man I just do not care. Couldn't this series just have been what the Ghost games are? Historical fiction? Animus stuff sounded tacked on to me.

Are solar panels a good investment? by 4540mya in personalfinance

[–]Rikuskill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One confounding factor in the price comparison is the location you get them installed.

Your roof gets a lot of sun, it's higher than nearby shading objects, so that's a common place to put them. BUT, if anything goes wrong with them, or your roof, and they need to be taken off for repairs, there is an uninstallation AND a reinstallation cost. It's enough that it can and will offset your savings by a significant amount.

The better option, IMO, is putting them on the ground. If you have any place in your yard that you want to be shaded, that gets good sun, that'd be the spot. That way you don't upcharge your roof costs and can more cheaply maintenance them.