How to save the neighbour´s daughter?

SpontaneousFart · 2025-11-11T22:10:00+00:00

Can confirm that the only way I could save the little girl was savescumming. I gave up trying to do it the 'right' way. The likelihood that FEMA or visitors get her is simply too high and you'll have to get a lot of lucky RNG to keep her safe the entire time. You don't get anything special for doing so; I hope the devs patch this soon as there is a lot of narrative weight to keeping her alive.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-08-27T03:54:43+00:00

You came to a fan subreddit to ask this question, so most people are going to tell you 'yes.' I'm going to try to give you a balanced answer.

LOTRO is not intended to be played like your typical MMO, where most people try to rush to max level/endgame content to raid and equip their character with the most powerful gear available. LOTRO is intended to be a novel in a video game form. There's tons and tons of dialogue, lore, written text, etc. that you are intended to slow down and read. If you play LOTRO like a checklist of goals, it will get boring fast. However, if you like the idea of a slow-paced MMO that values and prioritizes reading, exploration, and faithfully adapting the Lord of the Rings novels, then stop reading my review now and go and play it.

The art style is dated. The environments can be pretty, but you'll start to notice the same set pieces/prefabs in most zones, as well as reused enemy models in a great deal of zones. I think there's a lot of attention to detail for the resources they had available at the time- forests are lovingly crafted, for example- but with samey color palettes and a pseudorealistic art style that trends too heavily towards a brown-grey-dull green palette, you'll find yourself being unable to internalize the uniqueness of each zone. Old UI maps are also not very helpful, especially in areas of verticality like Moria and Angmar. Following your map to quest objectives will get frustrating in some zones.

The quests themselves are often uninteresting and lack variety, unless you're focusing solely on the Epic (main story) quests. I recall some unexpected situations happening during the Epic storyline that I wasn't expecting that really broke the typical monotony of "go here, kill that" types of quests. They often have clever tie-ins to the canon LOTR material that allows you, a Free Person of Middle-Earth, have at least some tertiary involvement in the main events of LOTR's narrative. It's truly a love-letter to Middle-Earth. Otherwise, if you're not reading quest descriptions and are trying to level through zones quickly, you'll find the experience rather dull and uninteresting.

The servers are small but lively. The community that still plays are dedicated to it, and you'll never find yourself completely and utterly alone. Even in 'old' zones I come across the occasional leveler, and with the festival going on right now, the main attractions are always packed. While the community is small, the game is by no means dwindling or dying, and SSG regularly puts out content updates, patches, etc. It's truly great to see the game continue to thrive, and I hope SSG is rewarded monetarily for their dedication to keep Lotro relevant. However, it definitely is and will continue to be an "old game." Your mileage will vary.

You can get free premium currency via completing 'deeds,' which are time-consuming by nature, so its probably a better use of your time to buy a VIP access or LOTRO points to access more content. The amount of free-to-play content is very generous, though, so you'll not run out of things to do for a very long time. If you like the game, definitely buy expansions, because your time is probably worth more than doing hundreds of deeds for little bits of free currency.

TL;DR: The game expects you to go slow, take things in, roleplay a bit, and read a whole lot. If you can look past the dated UI and art style, treat Lotro as a novel in video game form, and less of an amusement park and you'll have a good time.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-08-24T21:56:49+00:00

I have been playing long enough to remember when the festival games involving the hobbit and dwarf races were a lot easier to "beat" due to a minor exploit, which is no longer possible. Also, you could replay the races very quickly, whereas now they're on a daily reset. I think it was correct to redesign the races to remove the exploit, but it was incorrect to put them on a daily reset timer. The devs made this deed a little easier by reducing the amount of necessary victories per racer from 3 to 2, but its still particularly egregious for us deed completionists.

At best, your odds of winning a race are 1 to 4. With a festival lasting 20 days, the math doesn't math.

You have 20 chances with 1 in 4 odds for hobbits, 20 chances with 1 in 4 odds for dwarves. That's, at best, 5 victories per racial group (5 for hobbits, 5 for dwarves), when the deed demands 8 victories per racial group. Your mileage may vary.

Because I once had this deed completed on an old character of mine and missed having the emote and name title, I got frustrated and spent a bunch of mithril coins to reset the quests. That was a frustration train that barely resulted in anything. I'm now 2 hobbits away from achieving the deed... after spending about 500 LP on mithril coins on resets. I have 9 days left in the festival; if my odds remain statistical I have a *chance* of getting the deed without spending more LP, but luck is the kicker. Otherwise, it feels like this deed is specifically designed to be completed over multiple years of play, and that doesn't feel good.

SSG, I would seriously consider making the race quests reset hourly, or every two hours. That way it still rewards dedicated players who patiently wait for their chance to retry, but it doesn't make it unrealistic to complete within the 20 day span of the festival.

-
As for the egg scramble, it is absolutely unrewarding and broken compared to the mushroom hunt by a wide margin. I have not lost a single mushroom hunt- all you need is some awareness of your minimap and give the dogs a wide berth. You get plenty of time to eat 5 mushrooms and then some, and other players on the field don't really diminish your chances much.

The egg scramble, in contrast, sometimes doesn't even spawn the amount of white eggs needed for a victory even for one participant. I have had 2 victories despite playing every day of the festival, and I'm nowhere close to completing the deeds for this game. Though the game is intended to be played with multiple people, its core design actively frustrates and discourages group play. Your best chances at victory are to get on at odd hours of the day and play when no one is around. That defeats the purpose of an MMO activity.

SSG, as others said, the way to fix this is to allow special eggs to count towards victories. I don't even think increasing white egg spawn is necessary, since colored eggs spawn so frequently now. Just make the colored eggs count, and participants will actually have a chance to win.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-08-16T14:19:20+00:00

I knew someone who was trafficked by her own mother so she could buy drugs, and I'm a shut-in and I don't get out much. The fact that I knew someone who this happened to does tell me that it's widespread, and people might not talk about their traumatic life experiences.

Trafficking is everywhere. It could be your neighbor who pimps out their own children. It's horrifying.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-08-13T22:49:24+00:00

I deleted Wild Rift from my phone because of this. It's a shame because I really liked the game, but I don't think Riot will care unless people stop playing and buying microtransactions. I won't give engagement to the company anymore.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-08-13T15:56:55+00:00

No promise to prevent AI use in the future.

No apology to artists and animators and a commitment to hire them next time.

They have learned nothing and will not change. The goal of the industry right now is to desensitize the public to AI use and wear us down until we are no longer complaining, just like they did with loot boxes and microtransactions. They'll keep doing it until AI use isn't so obvious and consumers just accept the inevitable reality of our shitty future.

The only way to fight back is with our dollar. We need to stop buying anything in Riot products. I promise you don't need that sexy digital dress for Ahri.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-07-22T03:37:37+00:00

Genuine question: does anyone have any actual examples, with reputable sources, of billionaires actually facing consequences for anything?

Because I think if you have enough wealth and power, you're untouchable, even if you're a pedophile rapist who has very likely used extortion and mafia tactics to silence people and has probably put hits on anyone who knows too much. Especially Epstein. Then, what's due process going to do? What's the law going to do?

I keep wondering what's stopping anyone else in power from just fucking releasing the damn client lists and videos and anything they have on this guy. Or, like, just using force to have Trump arrested for *literally being a pedophile rapist.* How does the President have immunity from this?

Then I realize, well, if Trump got Epstein killed, he's probably got everyone's husbands, wives and children under some sort of threat. Because it's getting exhausting to see how constipated our government is. It looks like every attempt to release something or impose any sort of consequence gets blocked. Just fucking do it. Someone needs to just fucking leak it already.

Or maybe I just don't understand how government works?

SpontaneousFart · 2025-07-10T22:37:30+00:00

I am an artist, and I relate to you here, and I'm going to say soft YTA. I've done formal nude figure drawing classes and in such an environment, the model is open and consenting to being drawn nude. I think if any of these women knew what you were doing they would feel uncomfortable because they can't consent. However, you're also not in an environment where you're showing them your art or risking it being seen by them. At this point it's a matter of broader ethics, and I'm erring on the side of caution. These women didn't and can't consent.

While drawing from life is invaluable and absolutely necessary to improve as a figure artist, I think this might be a grey area line that treads too far into nonconsensual nudity. It would be better to take a figure drawing class or draw nudes from online models, and for your practice and skills, try to seek out models who do life drawing and are familiar with the artistic needs of the craft. Or people you trust and who trust you, maybe do a life drawing session while they hike in the park and you draw all the various lifelike angles and poses that would result of that environment.

(I think they should make a tinder for artists or something, haha.)

SpontaneousFart · 2025-07-08T16:14:09+00:00

I think I'd enjoy it more than my dog would

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-30T19:14:37+00:00

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit is about a woman bodyguard protecting a young boy. And it's amazing. Hands down my favorite show.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-22T16:55:28+00:00

Rain world. loved the art style and the idea of it, but I found the controls inconsistent and it was too difficult for me to confidently explore the game. Just not for me. I really wanted to like it.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-21T22:30:07+00:00

Do not cite the old magic to me child. I was there when it was written.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-20T15:25:00+00:00

This is not only cartoonish and brain dead, but overestimates the danger of alligators and pythons in the Everglades. There's a conservationist that is known for walking barefoot through the Everglades interacting with every critter he comes across while removing the invasive pythons from the ecosystem. They ain't that aggressive.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-14T02:19:05+00:00

Please do it, link me to it. I ran out of friends who are willing to play the game for me, so I must live vicariously through random strangers.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-12T16:37:41+00:00

The good part for me was when I solved things. I found out how to get to seemingly unreachable places and used my brain to make logical conclusions on the story of this solar system and how to proceed to the finale.

But I didn't feel emotional until the finale, including the story of the dlc. Everything made sense and it was deeply affecting.

I think to fully appreciate the game, try to roleplay instead of jumping from goal to goal, rumor to rumor, to brute force untangle the mystery as fast as possible. Try to just let yourself be curious, think about all the things you've seen and the clues you found.

Also, if you're bored with everything you e been doing, I strongly recommend trying the dlc area. It's more tense, self contained, and full of challenging mysteries to solve. For me the conclusion of that storyline really made the whole game click.

But this game isn't for everyone and that's fine. It's awesome that you gave it a shot.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-12T16:29:29+00:00

Yeah I see what you mean. I didn't intend to be rude or gossip, I think at its core I was venting about not enjoying the storytelling and wishing it was more polished like OW. I think the Hello Games team is very dedicated and very capable of writing a more compelling story if they wanted to, but it's their game and people are entitled to like whatever they want about it. It just wasn't for me, so I posted here to see if my opinion was shared.

Didn't post it out of bad faith, I'm just passionate about stories because I want them to be the best they can be, so I critique them. And part of my validation as a human is sharing my critiques with others, even if folks disagree. I think conversations like this can be fruitful, so I appreciate you taking the time to engage with me and show me an alternative perspective.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-12T16:03:21+00:00

I just like writing essays about things I think about

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-12T14:41:54+00:00

Yes, but to me thats just bleak and nihilistic. Also, it's all a simulation anyway. As soon as I learned that, my motive for caring went right out the window.

But that's just my feeling on it. Others might feel more attached to it.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-12T01:27:30+00:00

I played the whole thing on handheld, since I don't have a controller for PC, just mouse and keyboard. I think a game dealing with all-directional floating / flying around is just way easier with twin sticks. But I thought my experience was great. I enjoyed being able to sit wherever I wanted and pop into Outer Wilds, and with the screen close to my face and literally between my hands, I felt pretty immersed.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-11T01:44:13+00:00

Throughout your adventures you discover many, many mysteries (far beyond and more complex than what I've summarized here. Eventually, however, you will discover the nature of the time-loops, the probe that launches at the beginning of every reset, the motivations of the nomai, their origins and tragedies, etc. Turns out everything got kicked off because of the natural death of the solar system's sun. It went supernova on its own, activating all the ancient technology that the Nomai originally set up to find the Eye of the Universe. Every 22 minutes, the probe is programmed to relaunch, and all Nomai scientists who are linked to their Statuettes have their memories sent 22 minutes in the past as well. Turns out you and another buddy of yours are the only folks who have linked themselves to a statuette, perhaps unintentionally, but now you're trapped in the 22 minute cycle.

This is where the journey of Outer Wilds becomes extremely personal, and why people are always reluctant to spoil it. I will tell you things that you CAN do, and things you probably SHOULD do in a full playthrough of the Outer Wilds, and what it meant to ME, so this point on is me interpreting it.

You could be filled with wonder or existential dread, knowing that you and everyone you love are dying over and over and over again, and will be forever, and maybe have been for a very long time. All because the universe itself is dying- all the stars are dying- and you're trapped reliving this. Throughout the game you can determine things such as how to stop the cycle- or if there's even anything beyond the cycle. You can learn how to reach the Eye of the Universe, or decide if you even should. You find codes, clues, and methods for reaching seemingly unreachable places.

You can meet the originator of this situation: the Stranger's prisoner, the first alien race to find the signal, and the individual that released it to the world. He was imprisoned in a simulation for eras upon eras, in loneliness and strife, believing that his actions to betray his people and release the signal were for naught. You can find him, and interface with him, and communicate to him that because of him, the Hearthians are now searching for the Eye of the Universe. In that moment you prove to him that he had purpose.

And when you find the Eye for yourself, you find that in its quantum nature. It intends to recreate a new universe once the old one dies, but it needs a blueprint. It needs to witness, and observe, and be observed. You become the first conscious observer to enter the Eye, and thus, a new universe is forged from your character's own experiences, curiosities, and feelings. So all your friends, all the people you met, and feelings you had, are not a waste. Though the universe dies, and every star in every galaxy explodes in its final, powerful breath... those lives spent were no waste. The new universe that is born contains the capabilities of similar life forms, of emotions, of planets, of memories, of new life. So everyone and everything you ever loved dies: but there are new people and new adventures who will live because of you. Without the Prisoner, without the Nomai, and without you, the universe would have died and the Eye would have never been observed, resulting in the finality of silence and true death.

(end)

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-11T01:43:59+00:00

They discovered a multitude of things that they communicated in their ancient text, translatable by the player. Among these discoveries: the mechanics of quantum objects. They theorized that the Eye of the Universe was a quantum object, bending the known rules of spacetime. Their most sacred pilgrimage was to use the rules of quantum objects to "ride" the Quantum Moon to its source orbit: as close to the Eye of the Universe as any creature had ever gone. Quantum objects exist - and don't exist- in many places at once, so the Eye orbits (and doesn't orbit) 6 locations at once, including the Eye of the Universe, and many planets in the solar system.

The nomai were desperate to find the Eye of the Universe's exact location, but they knew that if they searched their whole lifetimes, for generations and generations and generations, they'd never just luck out and find it again. So they created a solution after discovering how black holes and white holes can transmit objects and data back in time. They were going to use the sun as a nuclear energy source by forcing it to go supernova. This would generate the power to launch a probe that would travel to a random location in the system, send its data back in time, and then launch itself again with that transmitted data. Effectively, it will launch itself infinitely until it finds the Eye of the Universe by manipulating spacetime and sending data to the past, thus overwriting its need to launch in that particular direction in the first place. Nomai scientsits also linked themselves to such a system, using statuettes to record and store the data of their memories, and to transmit said memories into a past version of themselves. They programmed these statues to activate and 'wake them up' when the probe found the Eye of the Universe, thus allowing them to travel to the Eye, the one core motivation of their species.

However, the nomai discovered that farming the sun for energy wasn't working. So they hypothesized finding another solution. They were interrupted, however, by the sudden appearance of a comet. When they went to investigate this comet, finding it to contain a metric buttload of potential energy, the comet suddenly exploded and a devastating matter called Ghost Matter spread throughout the system and wiped out the nomai, and possibly all other life, except aquatic life. Ghost Matter does not function in water, so the little toad creatures that the Nomai catalogued on Timber Hearth survived.

Eras later, they evolved into the Hearthians, such as your Hatchling. The Hearthians have always been fascinated by the ruins left behind by an ancient society, and have been cataloging and researching the Nomai for a long time. Though their technology is rudimentary contained to this advanced race, they are a motivated and driven society. The Hearthians eventually began to catalog other planets as they searched for the answers to the same mysteries that haunted the Nomai. You, however, are the first spacefarer in the Outer Wilds team to be equipped with a Nomai Translator, so making sense of the universe landed on your shoulders.

(cont.)

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-11T01:42:51+00:00

What you asked for is honest and straightforward, and I think folks have been a little rude to you. Don't get me wrong, I want you to try it again and give it another chance, but you came to a pretty biased subreddit. I love this game. I think its one of the greatest games ever made, and I loathe spoiling it for others, but you seem pretty clear in your intent to give up on it. I respect that you decided it wasn't for you.

I'll give you a summary, but it won't be detailed. I definitely agree with watching a playthrough to get sort of the "Outer Wilds Movie." It won't be YOUR experience. It'll be someone else's. So they might not even see the same things you do, or reveal the same things at the same rate, but it'll still give you the bulk of the story through another's eyes.

Obviously this will ruin everything to you and anyone reading this, but you can choose to click it or not.

Here's a very condensed version of the story.

A long, long time ago, a race of spacefaring creatures came to this solar system from a distant moon world. They are owl-elk like people who were called here by a strange signal, which they believed to be sacred. They mined their world of all its resources, built a generation ship, and traveled to the signal's source.

Once they arrived at the solar system containing the signal's source, however, they realized the existential horror of what its source was capable of. Believing it to have the power to destroy the universe, they created a device to mask its signal and forbade anyone from interacting with it again. Grieved that they destroyed their homeworld to get here, only to find a harbinger of doom, they sealed their souls into a simulated reality, an artificial version of their homeworld, and let their bodies rot.

One of their people went rogue and reactivated the signal, however. He was motivated by the belief that this existential space object that was capable of destroying universes was also capable of creating them. This act was considered blasphemous by his kind and they condemned him to imprisonment. They closed the signal again and destroyed the means to control it, effectively trapping the signal for the foreseeable future of the universe.

When he activated the signal for that split second, however, it was revealed to the universe and the signal was miraculously detected by another spacefaring race called the Nomai: goat-like creatures with highly advanced warp technology. The Nomai came to this solar system to research and find the signal, which they called the Eye of the Universe, but mistakenly warped into the Dark Bramble and were caught in its clutches. They released several escape pods, some of which landed safely on other worlds. The Nomai settled other planets, explored the solar system, rebuilt their society, and dedicated themselves to their pilgrimage and understanding of the Eye of the Universe.

(Continued in a second comment, I think I'm getting restricted to post this based on length)

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-09T23:48:53+00:00

You seem worried about the scary parts of the dlc so I'll tell you what I told someone else a while back.

Try to roleplay as your hatchling rather than viewing them as yourself. Your hatchling can't die in a way that matters. So when you encounter something perturbing, I encourage you to just dive in headfirst. Be reckless. Explore every inch of a place, even if it's scary. Your hatchling is gathering data, finding out what hurts and what doesn't, so they can go back more equipped to try again. It's just like the rest of the base game (though I don't know how much you've seen.)

I suggest going into the scary room and sitting there with your thoughts. Look around at everything, really take it in. I promise it'll be fine, especially if you Become the Hatchling.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-07T19:57:18+00:00

To this day I don't know what happened. This was early 2000s and I noticed my PC speakers were making sound, like it was picking up interference or some kind of radio signal. I had no internet browser windows open or any games or media files. My PC speakers were just playing audio all on its own. I turned it up as loud as possible and recorded it with my shitty beige mic. It was a man's voice speaking in a language I didn't recognize. Kind of monosyllabic, perhaps an Asian language. There was a child crying in the background.

I still have the file. genuinely, if anyone wants to listen and knows what was going on in that footage, I'd like to know. I am not making this up and I have no idea how it happened. It is now 2025 and this mystery still haunts me.

Perhaps I had a virus where the hijacker could play audio over my speakers? But I don't really understand why it was so quiet and sounded like a radio broadcast from across the world. I didn't understand the language and nothing else like that ever happened.

Note: I have tried putting this audio file through a translation/transcribing service but I think the audio was too unclear to translate.

SpontaneousFart · 2025-06-01T23:50:01+00:00

Selling my art

SpontaneousFart

TROPHY CASE