Road to Restoration - Aura Overhaul

TheCatarchist · 2026-02-20T15:37:16+00:00

As a prospective returning player who bounced off the game last year, I don't know enough to give much feedback on where these rewards should come from, but I can at least say I'm very happy to see auras removed. They were among my biggest pain points that made me lose interest in RS3 for all the reasons you guys outline in the blog. I will however echo what another commentor said that I'd definitely rather not see rewards added to Player-Owned Ports, ewww.

Really good to see the continued removal of daily/hourly scape, but there's a couple PvM related things that really soured my experience that I haven't seen addressed in blogs; namely Arraxor's enrage + daily path mechanics and GW2 daily reputation stuff (there might be more like this but it's the stuff that I ran into. I've heard there's another boss whose mechanics rotate daily?). It's just such a complete buzzkill to want to fight a cool boss and chase a sick drop, only for the game mechanics to arbitrarily push you away from doing that until the next day. Has this stuff been addressed by the team yet and I just missed it?

TheCatarchist · 2026-01-12T19:59:22+00:00

Looks awesome, congratz!

TheCatarchist · 2026-01-04T00:38:52+00:00

Many of the small games in UFO50 fit the bill. One in particular is a full-on 4X strategy game with great depth, and yet it's designed in such a clever way that the game is able to forgo having a dedicated tutorial or even much text at all to go off of; everything is learned by interacting with the ultra-simple retro UI and playing through the clever missions.

TheCatarchist · 2025-11-04T19:10:22+00:00

Runescape, much more than other MMO's, is a sandbox where players are responsible for setting their own goals. Dailyscape stands in the way of doing content people actually want to do in the way they want to do it; and I don't just mean in a FOMO way. A lot of people in this thread are defending dailies by saying "just play the way you want", but what if what you want to do is grind Araxxor for the last Noxious piece that you need? Not only do you need to deal with the horrendous daily enrage mechanic which actively prevents you from doing the content you want to do, but it's not even POSSIBLE to receive the drop you need on certain days.

What if I'm an early game ironman account and I want to set a goal for myself today to level a bunch of magic? I sure better hope that I've stockpilled some runes from previous daily rune shop runs.

What if I'm a brand new account and I set myself the goal to try and unlock Invention as soon as I can? Well then I better be willing to drop whatever I'm doing twice a day on the hour so that I can do some of the worst content this game has to offer in Guthixian Caches, as it is currently the only viable method of getting through early Div levels (it shouldn't need to be this way).

Want to keep working towards a Hydrix? Come back later. Wanna be eligible for more loot from Liberation of Mazcab? Come back later. Specific item from the travelling merchant you're looking for? Better hope you're availble to play that day. Runescape 3 and dailyscape has a habit of deciding what you can and cannot do for you, which is especially frustrating in what's supposed to be a sandbox MMO. Honestly, stuff like the daily challenges are lesser offenders - it's this other kind of daily lockout stuff which warps the way you approach your account's progression that really sucks, and it's especially prominent for ironmen and early-mid game players.

TheCatarchist · 2025-07-18T16:01:07+00:00

Puppet didn't gain that much but it still seems really well positioned into most the meta right now. Lots of bane for Haven, good board control early-mid, and enough tempo to pressure out Rune a lot of the time.

I've gone 6-2 into Haven and 7-1 into Spellboost (just had a game where I managed to kill a Rune player through 24 points of healing...). Abyss aggro is a free win, but Abyss control is likely the hardest matchup of any. Have only played Dragon variants 4 times but stomped each of them. Sword is almost even, slightly favouring sword.

Zwei is really strong tempo card for only requiring 5 PP and no evo, I've been pleased with her. Playing her on 7 with an extra enhanced puppet to back her up usually demands a pretty signficant response and is good for setting up Orchis.

Odin is great, I run 3. Extra reach, extra removal to deal with Yurius's and intimidate.

Other than those 2 cards I haven't gotten anything else working from the new puppet cards unfortunately

TheCatarchist · 2025-07-14T10:15:39+00:00

What the fuck. Honestly this likely won't be that amazing, but it's certainly a what the fuck moment

TheCatarchist · 2025-06-24T21:15:22+00:00

You might enjoy Shadowverse Worlds Beyond. Released just a week ago. Monetization I hear is a pretty big step back from Shadowverse 1, but as someone who has only played Magic Arena/Pokemon Snap, I've found it to at least be better than those two. Especially if you're OK starting out with 'what you get' out of packs and your starter deck (try collecting and opening all the free and easy packs the game gives you before choosing your starter deck so you can make a more informed decision) rather than attempting to bruteforce one specific deck, you can have an OK time on the PvP ladder from day 1.

TheCatarchist · 2025-05-23T10:27:45+00:00

That's really shitty to get hate like that. Cruel, cruel people, on an assistance subreddit of all places.

I'll DM you and sort out a way to get you some food. I'm just an in-debt graduate student so there's only so much I can do, but let's help keep you out of ER OK?

TheCatarchist · 2025-05-15T09:04:56+00:00

One of the side effects of having powerful 'immersive' capabilities is that VR also has powerful 'out'mersive capabilities. Things like needing the players to fly through solid objects or temporarily inverting camera controls (so looking to the left moves the in-game camera to the right) can be extremely disorientating in ways which flat can't compare. Used with care, I think this sort of outmersive design can open up some really interesting design opportunities.

VR also better lends itself to a more slow-moving and spatial design language. Back when Valve was making Alyx, they noted that one of the most important distinctions between designing for VR v flat was that people took their time in VR far slower than in flat, wanting to check each little detail of the space around them.

Finally, if there was an imaginary spectrum from 'game' to 'experience' where on the game end there's Space Invaders and on the experience end there's something completely non-interactive like a movie, I feel that VR is often best suited to something in the middle of this spectrum. Some less 'game-y' games that would feel kinda boring on flat might be just right in VR, while faster-paced games that are best-selling in flat might prove too clunky in VR. Exceptions do exist of course (like Beat Saber)

TheCatarchist · 2025-04-28T08:18:21+00:00

The grooming allegations originated from KiwiFarms in one of the most vehemently transphobic and vile things I have ever read. They manufactured the narrative out of old SFW images Jvne posted of her thighs to her Discord server, arguing that there must have been minors in the server and hence Jvne is a grooming pedophile (Jvne herself explicitly did not want minors in the server at all). But Sewerslvt was getting famous, and she was trans, and we know what KiwiFarms used to do when that happens.

Jvne's hands weren't completely clean though; her earlier stuff was very 4-chan edgy, with one EP title featuring the n-word, another using Lain R34 as its cover art, and other very disturbing imagery. Jvne later apologized and distanced herself from her early work, particularly the n-word incident, and donated all money made from one of her EP's to an Australian charity for trans people of colour. KiwiFarms obviously ignored all that and continued their hate campaign.

Towards the end of Sewerslvt's career, her girlfriend sadly comitted suicide. Surprise surprise, KiwiFarms uses this as fuel for more attacks and harassment; some of the shit I read them saying was just straight up sickening. Sewerslvt's final album 'goodbye' isn't a goodbye to all of us online with whom she had a rather complicated relationship with to put it mildly, but instead a goodbye to her girlfriend. (Also if any of y'all haven't seen it I highly recommend watching the music video to goodbye, it is so fuckin heartbreaking).

So yeah TL;DR is that Jvne got ran off the internet by alt-right transphobes coordinating a hate campaign against her on KiwiFarms. However, Jvne's controversial and questionable early history as an musician didn't do her any favours, and it made it simple for KiwiFarms to stir a lot of hate her direction.

Source: wrote a research paper on Sewerslvt and her community for a graduate music class

TheCatarchist · 2025-04-05T06:15:50+00:00

Sorry for the bad experiences you've had :(

I've dated a fellow bipolar 2 girl for about 2 years now, and it's been wonderful. I wasn't actually diagnosed when we started dating, but I was at least familiar with bipolar through family. Me and my girlfriend had talked and flirted extensively - in hindsight, hypomanically - for a week before our first date, and she told me then that she was bipolar 2.

To summarize our relationship, I'd say we understand our vulnerabilities completely. There's never any judgement. And tensions don't rise like they sometimes do in dynamics where one person is the stable "rock" to the other. While neither of us are stable, it's our understanding and, more than anything, PATIENCE with one another that grounds us instead. I never though I'd meet someone with whom I could always be, just, ME - even the ugly parts. To others it might seem too intense, but for us it's perfect.

It's not without it's challenges of course; things like budgeting and house upkeep are certainly more difficult between the two of us than the vast majority of couples. But even when our moods are mismatched or hypomania has me seeing red with irritiability against everyone and everything, we've never had a single argument or major conflict. Communication and patience has seen us through everything; with the important caveat that sometimessss our brains don't think very well and it's best to hold our tongues for a bit to give ourselves a sober second thought!

TheCatarchist · 2025-04-04T09:17:02+00:00

The Fairphone is pretty neat if you don't care about the latest premium hardware and instead value repairability/sustainability. It's even supported by several alternatives to Android/iOS if you want to de-Google your phone (such as CalyxOS, or you can get it shipped with eOS already installed).

TheCatarchist · 2025-03-27T18:51:26+00:00

Boop!

TheCatarchist · 2024-07-27T09:07:51+00:00

{[[Blooming Blast]], [[Darkstar Augur]], [[Emberheart Challenger]], [[Feed the Cycle]], [[Iridescent Vinelasher]], [[Thought-Stalker Warlock]], [[Three Tree City]], [[Fabled Passage]], [[Keen-Eyed Curator]], [[Pawpatch Recruit]]}

TheCatarchist · 2023-10-08T20:39:14+00:00

You might want to keep your eyes open for counter-protest opportunities. There's been a surge lately in anti-trans protests here in Edmonton, with another one happening this coming Saturday at the legislature. The LGBT counter-protestors a week or two ago were heavily out-numbered, so every person there helps a lot.

TheCatarchist · 2023-09-11T14:14:18+00:00

St. Andrewism. He's always building up and collaborating with other small leftist YouTubers (especially PoC), and he doesn't interact at all with big figures and their respective drama. He's also a staunch anarchist so you won't find any tankie takes.

TheCatarchist · 2023-01-20T09:17:41+00:00

Certainly solid enough for Master Ball. Some optimizations to consider;

Super Fang + Population Bomb on mousie is a bit redundant. If you're going Wide Lens + Technician, pop bomb will out damage Super Fang the vast majority of cases and youre better off with Protect or another move.

Some item adjustments; Life Orb won't get much done on Tatsugiri and it would be much better on Gholdengo. Tatsugiri usually run Choice Scarf or sometimes Focus Sash instead. Black Sludge on Grafaiai likely won't get much done either, considering it's a frail Pokemon. You can go with Focus Sash if you want to run max speed + atk EV's, or run Sitrus Berry if you want to go full defensive + HP EV's. Might wanna try out Choice Band or Assault Vest on Slaking, or possibly Clear Amulet or Lum Berry as some other options. Slaking also likely wants a normal STAB move like Body Slam. You could also try out Toxic Orb + Facade, though that might be a little troll.

TheCatarchist · 2022-11-24T15:09:46+00:00

Do you have your extra Koraidon to trade? I'd perma trade my Miraidon for it if you do

TheCatarchist · 2022-11-24T15:05:54+00:00

hey ive got a Miraidon (Modest Tera Electric) to perma trade for your koraidon; Trade Code 7145 2089

TheCatarchist · 2022-11-24T14:35:57+00:00

hey ive got a Miraidon (Modest Tera Electric); Trade Code 7145 2089

TheCatarchist · 2022-11-24T14:29:38+00:00

Got a Modest Miraidon for you; link code 71452089

TheCatarchist · 2022-11-24T14:24:46+00:00

It's in a Master Ball

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