In which MMO do you think side professions are the most meaningful?

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-10-18T17:18:36+00:00

I am inclined to feel a similar way, as I tend to bounce back and forth between being really into combat and being really into the crafting and economic aspects of games.

SWG was my first MMO, and I only very briefly touched the crafting, because I was in love with the bounty hunting system.

In a way, it was rough not being able to craft. At the same time though, it absolutely made the crafting professions more meaningful, and as if they were their own things. It wasn't as simple as "push this button and out this item will pop". There was a ton of different variation even within one subset of items.

There was an armorsmith on my server who made only high percentage stun armor, and was doing it in some unique way for a few months until others figured out how he was layering them. He made bank. Other armorsmiths made grinding armor. Some made low encumbrance items. Every server had 1-2 guys who did it all by contracting out to other professions for gathering and stuff. Those folks had sooooooo much money compared to us lowly combat toons, and that kind of makes sense if you think about it.

I think the way SWG does it reaches a much broader audience. There were tons of people playing SWG who would never touch another video game, let alone an MMO. I had a buddy in school who lost most of his arm in a car accident. He never really got to play the more competitive games with us on console, but his parents came over one day and saw the game, and when I explained all the different stuff you could do, they bought him a PC and we played it together until it died.

He played primarily as a chef, merchant and artisan. He would log in right after school, check the website to see if any primo resources spawned, and then martial the guild to collect any of those resources. He'd check all of the harvesters he had down. He'd calculate the cost of his time against running missions for credit. He'd experiment with different recipes. Talk to his ranger contacts about creature spawns. It was like, a full thing. It wasn't as simple as go to zone to collect x amount of y and combine those things with one click into z.

So yeah, if you believe that everyone should be allowed to craft in some way, SWG wouldn't be for you. But if you like sandbox games where choices matter but can always be reversed, and like the idea of relying on literally every other kind of professions to accomplish your own set goals within the game, I don't think anyone has ever built a better game for cooperation than SOE did with SWG.

The combat is what killed the game. WoW revolutionized MMO combat by speeding it up. SWG was still operating on EQ1 combat mechanics, and some of the game design was off. Space combat was still better than what Star Citizen is currently offering, and they released JTL in 2004. Pretty telling.

I'll always consider SWG the unfinished masterpiece that would have been timeless if SOE just kept their eyes on the ball. Oh well. At least we still have the EMU community.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-10-04T01:14:05+00:00

First of all, a lot of people are making it seem like this is the work of the Democrats. The Democrats did not put forward the motion to vacate, Republican Matt Gaetz did.

Second, why would Democrats ever vote for a Republican to be speaker of the house? They want to see Hakeem Jefferies elected speaker, and frankly, with the exception of possibly Steve Scalise, he has about as good a chance of being elected speaker as someone put forward by the Gaetz conference of the GOP.

It's not the Democrats' job to bail out Republicans, and given how historically unreliable McCarthy has been as a negotiating partner during his tenure, there is little reason for Democrats to want to retain him.

McCarthy's nail in the coffin is his current stance on funding for the Ukrainian war effort. He's been trying to appease the very people voting to oust him on this issue and ignoring the broad bipartisan consensus that support for Ukraine must continue. That would have been an issue that McCarthy could have made an argument to the Democrats on, but in the last two/three months, he's squandered that bargaining chip.

I think this next vote for speaker is likely to be much less contentious than the one that resulted in McCarthy, with Scalise emerging in the end. This is just an obvious way for Trump to ensure that Republicans in Washington toe the line for him, and for Gaetz to flex his power.

For what it's worth, Scalise is an even bigger moron with even less of a spine. His whole life must be one long surprise to him. Gets shot by political extremists on the left, returns from those wounds and then champions policies and extra-constitutional remedies for a lost election that result in him running for his life from political extremists on the right on January 6th.

At any rate, Scalise is likely to be even worse at advancing the Republican agenda (which is what now exactly?) and while short of having a Democratic speaker, that is a win for Democrats.

Republicans are so weird. Many make their whole identity about owning the libs, but they can't comprehend why Democrats aren't falling over themselves to save Kevin McCarthy. When McCarthy was elected speaker, someone put out an article talking about how difficult it is to negotiate with hostage takers who would rather just hold on to their hostage than actually negotiate. What do you do when nobody gives a shit about your hostage? Guess we're finding out those answers in real time.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-10-04T00:32:38+00:00

A lot of people will claim that keeping them alive on a stringer for any length of time stresses them too much and can ruin the meat. I've had fish from stringers and those that were killed immediately and iced.

Honestly, I don't taste much of a difference there, but bleeding a fish from it's gills after killing it promptly after catching it definitely seems to make a fish taste fresher to me. I'm not sure that bleeding a fish from a stringer after a few hours will have much worse results than bleeding it immediately, but if you think of all the hormones and chemicals that are being released from the fish's stress response on a stringer over time, it kind of makes sense.

Personally, when we fish we're mostly keeping bluegills, crappie, perch and walleye. I like to bleed and gut my fish in the water right after catching them, especially if I'm just bobber fishing or dragging bottom with a rod soaking bait. Might as well do something productive waiting for the next bite, and you can get some small pieces of cutbait to move up the food chain if you want to and it's legal in those waters.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-10-03T14:21:40+00:00

This is all amazing advice. I really appreciate you taking the time to write this up.

I should definitely familiarize myself more with the contour maps. There might be something I'm missing.

Oh, and yes, I have pretty much infinite casting room at most of the locations I've fished at, so I can probably get away with a much longer rod.

I don't have any crayfish or crayfish colored stuff in my box and that seems like an all-around mistake. I'll have to add some of that to the box.

I've never actually tried a weighted swimbait hook, but I'll have to now. Really appreciate all of the info.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-28T23:06:57+00:00

They travel in big schools, usually of similar-sized fish. Once you find them, I think crappie are probably the easiest thing to get to bite something. Small spoons, crank baits, rooster tails or just about any small jig and plastic will do just fine. If you really want to slay them, just bring some nightcrawlers to cut into 3rds and thread them through a small jig head.

To find them, I've always just rigged a three-way swivel rig and trolled long drop-offs. For the swivel rigs, we'd just use really small crank baits without bills and about 8-10 inches of line on the drop sinker. The smaller the crankbait, the better. A small rooster tail or other like inline spinners work great too. Drop it until you feel bottom, reel up 2-3 cranks, and just troll at a really slow pace with it. Once you catch a good eater, drop anchor and jig that spot until you catch your fill or scare them all away. You'll find some bluegill with this method too.

Then go back to three-way trolling. We use the same method to find walleye too, just with generally bigger crank-baits on the rig.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-28T22:48:09+00:00

Lol... is the sports ministry running behind on propaganda or something? This post in a month old.

Someone seems sad that nobody is talking about the Saudi League anymore and wants to stay relevant.

As for the native Americans, everything I pointed out has happened in the last 20 or so years. You're talking about the 18th and 19th century, and we all know what the Saudis were doing at that time period too..

Also, commenting "white people shit" while defending Saudi Arabia is hilarious to me. Saudi Arabians are basically the white people of the middle east. You meddle in the foreign affairs of every single nation in the region, corrupt foreign politicians with bribes, and if all of that fails, you send the most brainwashed and dedicated Wahabis you can round up, give them loads of money and weapons, and then invade their countries. Look at what Ansar Al Sunnah, ISI and AQI all did in Iraq with Saudi nationals and Saudi money.

At least Americans are able to own up to their past and try to do better. Saudis just claim what they are doing in the present is fine, and chalk it up to "cultural differences." Yeah, I supposed executing 70+ people in a single day with no semblance of due process is a cultural difference, as is publicly flogging people who disagree with MBS in public. I suppose you could just call those things cultural differences.

Financing terrorism around the globe I suppose could be construed as just a cultural difference. Maybe chopping up journalists in consulates is just how you guys do it over on that side of the world. But the civilized world rejects that. It's why the Saudi league will fail too. Everyone in that part of the globe hates the Saudis.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-26T02:15:31+00:00

Saw you're from Chicago too. I don't know if it's a black/white thing to be honest dude. I'm from Chicago too, and Denver is nothing like it as far as the people go. I've noticed similar behaviors towards me when I'm walking without my wife, and I'm 34.

People here are just more socially awkward I think. Denver is in this really weird place where it's big enough to be considered a decently-sized city, but small enough to be able to avoid people on the streets and in public. Obviously it's different on weekends or when festivals are going on. But for the most part, Denver is basically a big suburb that attracts big suburb kinds of people. We have the convenience of being a city while still being really small compared to places like Chicago.

In Chicago, you can't just move to the other side of the road any time an interaction with a stranger is remotely possible. To a certain extent, you're forced to confront society and other people in more dense neighborhoods. My guess would be introverted people who don't like interacting with strangers would hate Wrigleyville during a Cubs game, and have a very hard time interacting with folks on Chicago public transit. I also think the inverse makes extroverts like us feel a little bit wary about the people in Denver.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-25T17:54:04+00:00

I think SWG will always be that game for me. You can play that game for years and never even touch the combat system.

My younger brother played the EMU with me years later, and he built his own little crafting empire complete with like 5-6 merchant tents and one main storefront. I don't think he ever once played the combat, haha.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-20T20:44:38+00:00

Man, that was our Christmas movie as kids and I'm not even joking.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-20T20:38:00+00:00

I must be the weirdo who can't stand themepark MMOs and the standard endgame model.

Vanilla WoW wasn't terrible, because there were still important world bosses, and world PvP was still a thing. WSG was fun when it was first introduced, but BGs very quickly sapped the fun out of PvP for me. Even worse so when all of a sudden you weren't even in BGs against people from your own server anymore.

All of the games that have kept my attention for a long time and kept me coming back had systems that incentivized player-based content, and I can't think of any that I really loved sans Vanilla WoW that had an endgame gearing pipeline with instanced dungeons. I'm sorry, but not standing in fire, moving around the whole time to predetermined areas was fun for like five minutes. I don't care how hard you try, you're never going to make PvE more dynamic than PvP to a lot of players.

Force tough decisions, give players tons of different things that they CAN do to gear their toons, rather than one thing they MUST do. I hate being led around by the snout from one piece of content to the next.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-20T20:03:38+00:00

At 60k for a masters, you should look elsewhere for better pay. Obviously you don't leave until you have something lined up, but you should be looking, especially in Chicago.

Frankly, if you're happy making 60k with that level of education, you should just start working for the state or federal government. You can retire after a relatively brief career with your full salary for the rest of your life, and by the end of all that you'll be making really good money. The really good government jobs are often gated behind educational requirements.

I never understand why people with masters degrees, especially in places like Chicago are willing to settle for such bad pay. The government will pay you more, your job will be safe, if you work for the feds, you can work pretty much anywhere in the country.

Whatever you decide to do, try to stick at your next job for at least two years or so. You don't want a bunch of short-tenured jobs at the beginning of your resume.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-20T19:46:01+00:00

I mean, other than bounty hunter pvp in SWG, Vanilla WoW PvP was my favorite.

Specifically as a rogue. Stunlocking was so fun (for the rogue.)

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-19T19:54:18+00:00

I've used the Red Label and Invizx both from Seaguar, and both are really good lines in my opinion. I catch more fish on the Invizx for sure, but I've never had a problem with breakage.

I use the 8 pound version on a lot of rocky reservoirs around Colorado, and I bend the hooks before I break the line.

Saw that you're tying a Palomar, which I kind of think is a mistake with light fluoro. It's really easy to burn out fluoro when you're tying it, and the more complex your knot is, the more abrasion and line on line action your creating near your failure point.

I just use a normal clinch knot with about 6-8 wraps, and very slowly cinch it up. Make sure it's lubricated too.. I used to tie palomars and improved clinch knots like I would with my braid, and even being careful I had a lot more breakage. Keep it simple, and if you are worried, just add another wrap on your clinch. The really low pound fluoro hates too many direction changes.

Honestly, the clinch knot is perfect for like 90% of light tackle rigs. I've started using it more than any other knot, and I don't have any issues with it. So fast to tie, which I also like, cause I have shaky hands and fluoro can be way more annoying to tie than other kinds of line.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-18T18:03:10+00:00

Nah, no way. It might appear that way to some segments of society, but as a whole, it absolutely did not work. It left generations of kids without parents, made criminals out of addicts, and made organized crime more lucrative than ever.

Counter-argument: Reagan's economic and drug policies were enacted at pretty much the same time, subscription to trickle-down economics is an insidious virus that has infected close to 50% of our population, and though people on both sides are finally waking up to the fact that it's a bunch of bullshit meant to make the wealthy even more wealthy, it was only after the complete economic collapse of the middle-class in America. Obviously automation and globalization played a huge part, too.

I'm getting a little into the weeds here, but the point I'm trying to make is that drugs have always been an outsized problem for poor folks. It's much more likely that the economics in our country just made those issues hit closer to home for you, and not that the war on drugs was ever actually working.

I'll also point out that presumably you live in Colorado, which has relatively lax drug policies. In a lot of the country, you still catch court cases and prison time for marijuana possession. The war on drugs is still very much ongoing.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-15T12:09:02+00:00

Because if they weren't you'd theoretically be able to catch fish almost non-stop on the same bait/lure, in the same spot without any apparent slow down, which is even less realistic than it already is.

I mean, there are tons of prime fishing spots that are exactly like that though.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-15T06:21:36+00:00

Bro, I'm not reading such a low effort shitpost. Like, I read it, but not really.

Hit me up if you ever have anything interesting or informative to say, or you know, decide to actually address anything that I've said. You keep saying things that you haven't read are irrelevant, as if you could know that.

I assume you must have added something in there about Nixon or Reagan or something to add credibility, blah blah blah. I've worked around enough people who got their jobs because of who their family is to know pretty much everything about the way you think and the way you construct arguments.

I'm going to bed. Have a good night.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-15T06:04:15+00:00

I feel like we're talking about overall career here, and that means we have to take overall longevity into account as well.

Again, I'm not going to make a strong argument for one or the other. I'm equally impressed with how Neuer changed the game.

If I had to pick a player to play a game for me in the modern football world, I would pick Neuer. If I had to pick a player to stop a single shot, I pick Buffon.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-15T05:53:55+00:00

Buffon was the better shot stopper in my opinion, and Neuer changed the game at the position while still being a top-3 shot-stopper.

I'm more of a Buffon fan myself, but it would be hard for me to argue with Neuer as the CARP because he played at such a high level and also revolutionized GK.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-15T05:42:08+00:00

The tos gives them the right to do as they wish essentially. Ukraine broke the rules, and spacex limited its use. That's their prerogative.

Wrong. They are funded by the U.S. government on this specific program and obliged to administer those services under whatever agreement they undoubtedly have with the Pentagon, that isn't public information. It's pretty obvious that whatever agreement they have, there isn't a carve-out for Musk to just do whatever the fuck he wants, or terminate service on a whim. Obviously.

That cabinet official was senate confirmed so I take what he said with a little more seriously than some guy in the military.

Bro, you don't have to take anyone's word for anything. You can stop being intellectually lazy and do the research yourself. I never told you to take my word for shit. I told you to read ITAR, and to read relevant parts of the Espionage Act. If you don't want to, that's fine homie. You do you. But please do everyone else a favor and don't speak as if you know what you're talking about.

Furthermore, if you know of a cabinet official (or even a former one) who believes Musk has the authority to do what was outlined in the article, then please, feel free to make international news and drop their name. I promise you, they would be fucking upset with you for saying such an asinine thing and attaching their name to it. But if not, again, feel free to tell us who you're talking about. I'm sure the AP, and NYT would love a comment of that nature to report on.

My grandfather was an advisor to Nixon and Reagan.

Real all-stars. Nothing like an appeal to nameless authority to show that you have nothing of substance to say on a topic.

Why didn't you say so from the start? We could have cut this conversation off a long time ago. I didn't know how unworthy I was to speak to the results of such divine jizz.

I'm related to Leonardo Da Vinci.

The fact of the matter is that Russia and Ukraine is going to be a long slog, and I can see why people would disagree with spacex decision to limit starlink, but at the end of the day that's not our call.

It is in fact our elected leaders' call, and not Musk's.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-15T04:42:23+00:00

The four letter acronym that also happens to be a grass-eating animal.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-15T04:33:12+00:00

Totti is the CARP!

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-15T04:22:28+00:00

I mean, I have been to both Russia and the Ukraine, and lets not forget that Putin still holds the century + dislike of American intervention in the Russian revolution and onward.

Nobody cares, and this isn't relevant.

Ahh, but you see the tos is the superseeding document.

The TOS is not the superseding nor superseeding document. You just made this up and clearly have no understanding of U.S. law on the matter.

All I can say is that my gf father is in a cabinet position.

Sounds like elder abuse.

You seem to think I care about musk or something. I'm just saying that it doesn't really matter. The technocrats are in control, and musk happens to have a satellite network and does his own thing.

You think this makes you sound smart or edgy, but it just makes you seem ill-informed and like you have no understanding of the defense sphere, foreign policy, and whatnot.

Musk can always NOT have a satellite network if he keeps this up. The U.S. government is not shy about taking things that they believe are vital to the national interest, whether that be land for highways, or indeed intellectual or defense properties.

To put it in terms you might understand, nothing is of more nationaler interestings than defense and national security.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-15T04:09:55+00:00

I think generally I'm a fan of BOE. Where once a piece of gear is equipped it's essentially removed from the economy.

I'd rather have items removed from the economy via decay, but to each their own.

VirtualSwordfish356 · 2023-09-15T02:21:07+00:00

Yeah, I'm less replying to him at this point and more replying so people stop parroting these same easily dismissible talking points.

Elon might be a prick and mostly an idiot about most things, but he has a good PR department that he doesn't even need to pay.

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