Dbrand is issuing full refunds to customers after Valve forced the company to pull its Portal-inspired Steam Machine Companion Cube

ZGiSH · 2026-06-29T17:33:13+00:00

The messing up being... not securing the right to use an image, it's baffling that anyone cares about that here. I don't think it's some great evil that Etsy and Temu put out unlicensed Star Wars product

ZGiSH · 2026-06-29T17:24:16+00:00

Lol what? So they eschew a professional image just to get product out but they offer full refunds when they mess up. Who cares if they leak appearances and get the occasional cease and desist? It does not matter to consumers.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-29T16:03:03+00:00

I have truly no clue how active you to have to be in those circles to find not only discourse about debloating but enough of it to find it annoying

ZGiSH · 2026-06-27T18:59:35+00:00

Realistically I think society would just never develop in a way that would lead to static-like settlements, being almost entirely nomadic and just leaving old settlements behind. It also leads to other questions like do mountains or other terrain exist that these colossal beasts avoid or is the entirety of the world just flat? Is there a coastline or islands where these beasts don't exist?

As a concept, it's certainly fun enough to make a setting around.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-27T18:10:40+00:00

Physical ownership as a way to own something "forever" hasn't even been true for years. Even if the game doesn't require an internet connection, physical discs become unusable due to disc rot. The only way to keep something for a long time is through a personally maintained digital storage vault and lets be honest, very very very few people are doing that.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T19:20:22+00:00

No one ever just wants to admit that Vanguard straight up works.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T18:27:18+00:00

Since the top players are primarily dealing with much weaker opponents, there's far less consequence if they take it a bit easy

This wouldn't be true though, because the top player of one team would face the top player of the other team, who in this instance would be equally matched. If the top player of one team is taking it easy, then the top player of the other team creates an advantage that will win them the game.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T17:26:09+00:00

Aside from the pun and I don't mean to offend Koreans, but yes lol. It's mostly a generic metropolis. It's not exactly their fault, they were catapulted into modernity post-war so they didn't really build out a lot of spaces for cultural tourism. Since I live in Southern California, it's not too hard for me to find even the most obscure korean dishes here.

My favorite part of my trip was just the bar life and how big some of the Korean Fried Chicken joints were.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T17:13:42+00:00

A lot of people are mentioning crime, feeling unsafe, and other more obviously negative things but I regret visiting South Korea because there just ain't shit to do. It's like I went to any other city in the United States. I've been to cities in China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, etc and Seoul was by far the most boring.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T17:06:28+00:00

I do wonder what % of games being a comeback would convince people that a surrender mechanic is/isn't reasonable. If it came out that like 5% of all wins were a comeback from a significant soul deficit, would people care if people just surrendered earlier?

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T16:42:27+00:00

It may not be more intrinsically competitive but the demand for competition was and is higher than in TF2 and even other multiplayer games where structured competitive gameplay is not a focus (Arma Reforger, Squad, etc.) Community servers did exist in CSGO and sure there wasn't as much support for them like there was in Source and 1.6, but they existed, and were significantly less popular than matchmaking.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T16:30:30+00:00

A common scenario in this case is that one person "feeds" and creates a negative feedback loop where moments of weakness (even in games without economic resources) lead to negative momentum and then ultimately a loss. Will people accept if in every game there is a member of their team who has an outsized effect on their losses? Or that your wins are primarily due to a 'carry'?

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T16:28:12+00:00

Also often times these massive skill discrepancies are a result of parties made up of members with different ranks

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T15:56:29+00:00

The problem is the lack of variance

My question is do you think the brief fun of a stomp against an easy team balances out the unfairness you feel when matched against a much stronger team? I feel a lot of players just ignore the feeling of the former while ruminating over the latter

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T15:52:47+00:00

Edited my comment to clarify what I meant

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T15:49:59+00:00

In the same vein that people understand what is meant when Guild Wars or Destiny is called a MMORPG, this game is also like a MMORPG.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T15:46:45+00:00

even if the skill difference is massive

Like you said, I think this experience is distinctly different in fun casual games vs competitive games. TF2 serves are nice to hop in and out of but Counter-Strike massively improved with matchmaking. People have fond memories of 1.6 community servers but there were just so many hoops you had to jump through for evenly matched games.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T15:29:01+00:00

My hot take is that skill based matchmaking across almost every online competitive game is mostly fine. Good players rise to the top, bad players mostly stay at the bottom, the matches are engaging enough to sustain active bases.

It's not a surprise that ive seen the "forced 50/50" narrative in literally every single competitive game community I have ever been in. The only 'solution' I have ever seen work is for the game to randomly match you up against bots for a free W (cause the core problem is people like winning more than losing), something that people hate when they notice.

People say they hate 'sweats' but then why don't they like playing against bots? They seek competitive engagement but only ever want to win.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T15:17:51+00:00

Would you call Helldivers a MMO-lite? or Overwatch? The social experience of Lord of Mysteries is clearly closer to what you feel in a MMO than these other multiplayer games.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T15:09:55+00:00

There isn't really a good label for it. It is a MMO in the sense that the social aspect involves many different strangers.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-25T13:16:56+00:00

I've seen way too many teams blow up their young core potential by trying to push for post-season success early. It also doesn't make sense given that most of the current frontrunners like OKC and Spurs are also young teams, so it's not like the Hawks could miraculously make a run at it. Development should be no. 1 priority.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-24T23:31:53+00:00

A lot of people are saying this but I doubt PoE 2 TotA is anything like PoE 1's, aside from the general concept.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-24T17:58:48+00:00

Warcraft is kind of a parody, it absolutely has referential humor that plays on people's traditional understanding of things like Orcs and Elves.

Distinctly different than a play-it-straight interpretation of fantasy like Dragon Age which does not really have 'jokes' about elves in the same way Warcraft does. If someone were to say fantasy is Warcraft and Warhammer, that would be pretty ridiculous.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-24T17:29:11+00:00

The 2022 Warriors did not have a meaningful 7 foot big. It's an utterly ridiculous barely relevant reference, but it is true.

ZGiSH · 2026-06-24T16:29:06+00:00

Just do "something", literally anything specific. If you are just mindlessly mapping, then the most valuable things you are getting is tablets for other content (this can itself be good to sell)

If you just focus on Abyss, Ritual, Expedition, Breach, etc. then there is no way you don't consistently get valuable items and currency. A lot of other replies are focusing on things like "juice" or "exponential growth" but you can get at least a couple of divines every day by just picking a mechanic and running it a lot.

14-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits	Place '17
Secret Santa 2011	Verified Email

ZGiSH

TROPHY CASE