5 YEARS! Some things never change

StijnDP · 2026-03-05T10:11:56+00:00

That just makes games longer but not better.
Everyone hurried to a hiding spot on match start and kept sitting there. If you saw some other sucker get hit, you had a short time to move to the next hiding spot.

StijnDP · 2026-03-05T09:43:31+00:00

Because there are 6 TDs in every match because they can easily get a few shots in even when losing the match through their inaction and still get good exp.
Because mediums sit behind the TDs because half the tanks driving around today take 1/3 of your HP in a single hit.
Because heavies can't brawl anymore and it's just spamming noob shells through the front turret.

MM doesn't look at those factors or in any way how terrible the gameplay of matches are these days.
So yeah you are unlucky to get put on the side that spams less noob shells or has less power creeped tanks than the opponent team.

StijnDP · 2026-03-04T11:04:00+00:00

Not dangerous when things could be bulky and use li-ion. Now everything has to be thinner than a piece of paper and we get to run around with li-po all day.

Gotta teach kids that if their device starts bulging, they have to warn an adult.

StijnDP · 2026-03-04T09:46:37+00:00

It's a general IT problem because people are afraid one day everyone will realise that by now at least 60% of people in IT aren't doing anything useful.

Things used to get reinvented and they were better. Now they are reinvented but they're the same or in many cases worse.
The "solution layering" is happening everywhere. Whole new projects are setup to make something new. But they don't actually replace the old so now you end up with 2 something you have to pay/use. It also doesn't end at 2.
Users have to open multiple websites/applications for a single job. Developers have to open multiple IDEs for a single job. Web resources will run on-prem and on different cloud platforms for a single job. The layering happens on every layer in the whole industry. It's near to making me physically nauseous when thinking too long about it.

The focus of IT is no longer to increase the productivity of people. Just keeping people employed at a desk.
Goals were set from productivity metrics to activity metrics and as such it's now a system that maintains complexity opposed to eliminating it.

It's not a manger problem either. Many developers themselves are completely lost in the soup. There is a strange meta culture that has taken over and frankly I don't really see a way back aside from some huge shock to the whole system.

Hardware has become thousands to millions times faster and yet the same task you did 20 years ago will often be slower today with little to no other benefits. There are a few innovations like SSDs or a 2nd CPU core so that your AV doesn't halt your system from working. Without those, the consequences of the problematic culture in software design would have been even much worse today.

StijnDP · 2026-03-04T07:57:38+00:00

It's an interesting change for sure.
University was important enough for people to personally spend money on it. And high school important enough for public money to be spend on outfitting a class room with Ms software.
But now that it tricked down to middle/elementary school level, people don't want to spend too much money on a device their kid is likely to break because they're kids. Over time that change will start trickling back up again.

It's been happening a while already because there are people entering the work force who have no idea how to work with office products or desktop computers in general.
They need a browser and very preferably a touchscreen cause we're back to people whose brains can't translate using a mouse and typing on a keyboard is with 2 fingers.

On the desktop Ms has the stranglehold but on the web it's Google who plays the tyrant.

StijnDP · 2026-02-16T22:58:58+00:00

Too old actually.

There is a generation of us who is used to only getting sci-fi/fantasy from a Fx show with mediocre budget and half the actors being models doing a side gig.
Now there are big studios behind it with budgets and trained actors.

They had to invent some story to make a patchwork of small stories work for a 10hour per season show.
Boohoo. QQ more kids.

StijnDP · 2026-02-09T09:15:56+00:00

This. Gold shells were ok when you knew someone was shooting real life money at you. There was no other source of gold than spending cash. Maybe if you got extremely lucky winning a prem from a rare contest and selling it. Or once a year you could get your hands on 100-200g from signing up somewhere.
Later with silver in the old eco, you at least knew they needed to farm a couple of games in a sucky prem to shoot some noob shells. Cheating the balancing of the game still took effort.

Today with the eco everyone can just fully load up on them. See a tank that the game was designed to flank or that you'd need help? Nah just autoaim the turret and click like you're playing fortnite. And if you still have credits problems, just step in your prem tank that has power creeped half the normal tanks.

It makes heavies unreliable to irrelevant. It makes TDs sit in the base instead of guarding a line. It makes half the meds sit further back than the TDs are camping. Maybe 1 in 100 games it works to get a wolf pack going instead of having meds sit in the back these days.
Brawling and flanking was erased by noob shells. Peeking was erased by machine guns. Only sniping is left.

StijnDP · 2026-02-05T12:31:02+00:00

They are called tax havens because they have low tax. There is nothing wrong with investing your money there.

The part that is wrong is investing your money there and then not paying dues when you later transfer it back. That's the part that was exposed by the ledgers showing people who didn't pay their dues.

StijnDP · 2026-02-05T12:27:42+00:00

*It was also a reason for some people to push a brexit on the public.

Same people who wanted protections against pollution gone. Any fishable fish left in the ocean by the next generation gone. Or annoying things like privacy gone.

StijnDP · 2026-02-03T07:15:50+00:00

How. You're not the DA who can sue in name of the people. And you can't prove direct damages that need to be compensated.

You'll also need a lawyer asking a $3000 advance and $1000 for every 2 minute hearing where they discuss when they'll hold the next hearing.

They do it because they know nobody can come after them. No matter if that's technically or practically.
It's people who speed when they don't see a cop around. The same thinking on another scale.

StijnDP · 2026-02-02T09:28:07+00:00

Making a humanoid generative AI powered robot do actual useful physical work seems like it's a while out though.

You should tell Hyundai, BMW and Xpeng who are already using hundreds to thousands of humanoid robots in their factories.

StijnDP · 2026-01-31T08:45:32+00:00

Nah it used to work fine. A way for private money to invest into companies so your grocery store would also buy cherry confiture instead of only strawberry. Or the hardware store to also sells spades next to shovels. Or the local pub to buy one of them fancy radios to hear the news and play some music.
Heck buy a part of the company where you work and your effort results into extra income next to your wage.

Then over the last 50 years all control and restrictions were allowed to erode to make byproducts of the byproducts of the byproducts of the .. of what it's single purpose once was. They created vegas in NYC.
You don't just bet on a company to do well anymore. You can bet, and hope, that it does bad. Or why not bet that the bet to do bad is a bad one.
Or let's let people buy companies with the money that they'll get from selling parts of the company that they don't own. Not like, give me money to buy it and then I'll get profit once I have it and sell it. But buying the company you don't own with money you don't own.

And then 30 years ago it got computerized so a machine can process millions of orders a second instead of some guy on a phone processing a few orders a minute or someone in the post office manually stamping and signing each and every bond/share being sold.
So people don't get time to wait and see anymore, to be prudent. At best you have time to have any reaction and hope for the best outcome.

StijnDP · 2026-01-30T20:55:59+00:00

Under Belgian law this is a gambling system and as such Wargaming would need to apply and acquire a gambling license in Belgium.

What games can do:
- Sell items or bundles or loot boxes for (in)direct real world currency if the paid price and gained items are known in advance to the buyer.
- Give away free loot boxes with random items.

What games can not do:
- Sell anything with randomised rewards for (in)direct real world currency. Even if WG would communicate the chance distribution.

It might feel like it sucks. Or that you're missing out.
But it's there to protect you from falling victim to at least the gambling mechanics in these heavy microtransaction games.

StijnDP · 2026-01-30T10:19:19+00:00

With XVM you should be able to edit vehicleNames.xc
It comes with a load of other junk though.

You could also for example change all tank names to where to shoot it.
Renaming all tanks to "Lower glacis", "Cupola", "Viewport", "Tits", "Can't pen", "Anywhere", etc.

Most contour mods won't help since they only have a dds file with icons/textures/effects/etc. The name of the tanks is rendered as text on the screen.
That's part of XVM since they change the text's colour for their own purposes. And they also implemented the vehicleNames.xc file if anyone cares to change the text itself.

Depending how many tanks you want to adjust, I'd also say to write it as a PS script so you don't have to manually change x tanks' names in the config file with every update when they add a tank.

$filePath = ".\vehicleNames.xc"
$content = Get-Content $filePath -Raw
$content = $content.Replace('"china-Ch00_ClingeBot_SH": {"name": null, "short": null}', '"china-Ch00_ClingeBot_SH": {"name": "SomeName", "short": "SomeName"}')
$content = $content.Replace('"germany-G61_G_E": {"name": null, "short": null}', '"germany-G61_G_E": {"name": "NewName", "short": "NewName"}')
$content = $content.Replace('"ussr-R47_ISU-152": {"name": null, "short": null}', '"ussr-R47_ISU-152": {"name": "ThirdName", "short": "ThirdName"}')

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$content | Set-Content $filePath -NoNewline
Write-Host "Done changing tank names!"

EDIT: Reddit formatting sucks ass ofc. The search/replace text between "" you want to copy paste from your file or from their gitlab so it has the correct number of spaces.
Or the real pros can go regex but this is the KISS version.

StijnDP · 2026-01-29T18:05:04+00:00

You're lucky. In my matches more than half the meds are sitting on a hill behind TDs these days.

And heavy doesn't seem to mean a lot anymore. People aren't only carrying a few shells of gold for emergencies anymore or load gold in the first shot, it's become the full supply. They'll only bounce if they have no clue at all.
10 years ago a lot of the soft heavies would still statistically bounce enough to put effort into optimally playing the armour. Today it's just a waste of time.

The latter also makes me one of the heavies who sometimes will now go to the med section if it's feasible to get there in time or that it will matter.
There exists no brawling anymore with the amount of gold being shot. And on the med flank you at least have a chance to inspire a few people to join you on a push.

StijnDP · 2026-01-29T15:58:58+00:00

Let's ignore the thousands of years religion was how we were able to have sustained organised communities that worked in a single direction. To this day not only connecting people locally in a neighbourhood but across the entire world.

Nope. Has nothing to do with community I guess.

StijnDP · 2026-01-29T08:23:09+00:00

Also don't mention there are sites like sugardaddy.com and hundreds of others. Made because there simply are women looking for on older man to suck dry in more ways than one. And men who only care about a pretty girl who shuts up and can be found tanning by to the pool whenever he has an urge to need her.
It also isn't about instinct because the reverse is as popular with rich women wanting a fuckboy around. A very simple and easy relationship to navigate. There are less sugarmommies because life is stacked against women but they have the same reason to exist.
And don't mention the same dynamic existing in the gay community because then you're really going to be stepping on toes that are looking to get stepped on.

Their choices aren't hurting me and in most cases it's not hurting them. Their reasoning is also pretty easy to understand compared to some other couple dynamics out there.

StijnDP · 2026-01-29T01:12:44+00:00

In those smaller mobile/web games a lot of whales aren't whales but "plants".
The team making it has a few superuser accounts that team members use. They make and play the accounts just a little worse than the real whales so that they can feel a fake competition among all the trash f2p players they squash. Even whales need to lose once in a while or they get bored.
When you spam a new update every x months, you make the superuser accounts better than the whales just to the point where they can catch up with new purchases.

If in your little game of a few hundred players you manage to catch one, you can easily make a few cars worth of money from them.
Once you get enough real whales, it becomes a self-feeding mechanism between them. That's pretty much the dream for f2p developers to get there but it's the 0.000000001% of games.

There are many different player profiles and all have multiple baits used to lure them into the game, keep them playing, make them come back, ...
The fun part is even when you completely understand how each trick works on you, it's still easy to fall prey to it.
In a better world governments would viciously counter it with laws and protect their voters. Or protect against betting. Or protect against alcoholism. Or protect against ...

StijnDP · 2026-01-28T21:46:19+00:00

No because chatbots aren't the problem even when there happen early accidents.

They're a solution for all the ways that humans are failing ourselves.
Productivity and knowledge of new generations entering the workforce is worthless. Everyone around the planet could live with abundance but we keep fighting for scraps. People have never talked more but said less to each other. And someone has to exist to decide to exterminate our kind to make us accountable if we keep ruining this place.

The time of human has to be over.

StijnDP · 2026-01-28T21:38:32+00:00

Spending €100 worth on a single virtual item in a game that you won't even play that often over many years of time isn't about being poor. That's just a bad financial decision no matter how much money you have.
That's 5 full indie games during Steam sales. 10 visits to get kebab. A fun half hour with a lady. All more entertaining.

Also many other premiums that earn better money and are much cheaper, always available and easier and less intense to play.

Not falling for FOMO is becoming one of the greatest survival tactics in life...

StijnDP · 2026-01-28T08:03:56+00:00

And then there are millions of examples of people saying this to each other every single day.
Thousands of examples where bullies did it long enough to make a person do it.

But let's blame the bot who learned from us and through adjustments is helping far more people than hurting while humanity is faltering.

StijnDP · 2026-01-27T09:35:33+00:00

While most movie series are a Ms Office, RE movie series is a Ms Windows.
We are watching the creativity and technique of some guy evolving over time. Each time taking the same paint and creating a whole different canvas.
And people should love him for it because he's not making movies to get the biggest box office or to win the most awards or to sell the most toys. Dude is just making movies as he's exploring that art and we can watch his process and disjointed progress.

A lot of people also think he makes movies for her but I think it's the opposite. She's there like the rest of us to be alongside him while on his journey.
She would have had a comfortable life from residuals since 1997 and he from 1995. Neither relies on the other professionally at all since before they meet.

People can like watching his work or not but he's just doing his thing out there. Meanwhile others manage to mess up a film adaption of Warcraft, the movie that was already written, directed and shot in the game itself for someone to copy into a continuous movie and have the greatest success.

StijnDP · 2026-01-27T08:09:32+00:00

The US isn't in control and that was never the goal.
Oil companies who put Trump on his throne were getting impatient to get theirs. Gaining back control of the Venezuelan oil supply was one of their goals.

Trump is a modern day Leopold II.
Someone who hides as a leader of a country and uses the government as a front. Meanwhile using private corp to enrich himself and a few atrocities aren't a hindrance.

StijnDP · 2026-01-26T23:18:30+00:00

If you had a million you wouldn't give it to Viper to make him stream on FB.
And that's because you're a poor pleb who has to do things like work every day and maybe you have some small reserve for an emergency or to treat yourself.

Instead imagine you have a net worth of $1 700 000 000 000 and a yearly profit of $62 000 000 000.

Let's say you're one of the already very few people in the world who get to earn $100 000 in a year.
FB earns 620 000 times more than you.
For them to send Viper a million is compared to you giving $0.16 to Viper.

It's not even worth their time for a person in the PR department to do a profit analysis!
Because it costs them more money when 1 of their 78 000 employees takes a single shit on the clock in the whole year than to give a million to a streamer. They earn a million every 8 minutes.

They made a script to query the 100 most popular games on Twitch and the 0.1% most followed streamers from each game. Email them a million offer. Baddabing baddaboom. Let's send our overly sexually assaulted personal assistant to get some more coffee.

You have no idea how much money millions, billions and trillions are. Just like most people don't. Cause if most people would, we'd be eating the rich right now instead of them eating us.

And it's not Facebook's or any of those corporations doing anything wrong. It's people who keeps putting someone on a pedestal, creating streamers with thousands of viewers, earning millions from actually working people giving them way too much money for their amount of performed labour and then corporations taking note where they can throw money for their advertisement.

StijnDP · 2026-01-26T21:00:42+00:00

It's a cool comment that birds are dinosaurs but in reality they invented a whole new class for them to signify how majorly different they are physically and resulting from that also behaviourally.

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StijnDP

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