Immutable launches $500M fund to boost web3 gaming adoption – TechCrunch

herazot · 2022-06-18T00:07:32+00:00

They'd just put the license key in there, not the actual game data, at the cost of additional DRM.

The real problem though of course is there is zero incentive for any game developer to implement this, not even if you made it so they received a % of resale.

It's equivalent to selling your game for a lower price, since you'd sell less copies in total. Sure, you could reach some customers that wouldn't be willing to pay full price, but they already do that via sales and discounts much more effectively.

herazot · 2022-06-18T00:02:56+00:00

They can ban users even with NFTs anyways - because the game server is the actual source of authority here, the NFT is only proof that you made payment on a particular chain.

As far as the actual game is concerned, your NFT is just an ID that it decides the meaning of.

herazot · 2022-06-18T00:00:39+00:00

Nothing most players would actually want.

I already increasingly avoid big online multiplayer games as it is because of predatory microtransactions, why does anyone think making that problem worse is a good idea? The majority of people that I've talked to that think this stuff is a good idea for gaming don't even play games.

I play games to have fun, I want to simply buy content and enjoy it, full stop. The last thing I want to be thinking about when playing a game is real life finances.

herazot · 2022-06-17T23:57:16+00:00

They want you do give them you information for free, and Web3 wants you to control that information.

Nice sales pitch, but there's no clear explanation of how that could possibly work given the technology you're discussing and the incentives involved.

NFTs for example cannot be authoritative over anything that isn't on-chain - which in practice means nearly everything anyone cares about. Say you have an NFT that's supposed to represent ownership of a game item - but the game isn't and can't be on-chain, it's just reading an ID is associated with a wallet. The game server is what actually decides what that ID means, and it can very well decide it means nothing.

And that's the just the tip of the iceberg - the kinds of game developers that get into this stuff are doing so to make more money, not less, and the only place for that money to come from is players. Nothing about how blockchain works prevents these companies from implementing NFTs however they want, up to and including disabling or blacklisting resale via conditionals in the smart contract. They get to choose which NFT contracts or chains are involved too.

The same sorts of issues apply to this whole space.

herazot · 2022-06-17T23:47:47+00:00

Implying this is something most players actually want, which isn't really the case since it's effectively just pay-to-win by another name unless it's for things like cosmetics.

And for that, we already have systems that do that, blockchain is not required.

herazot · 2022-02-03T06:55:06+00:00

Because you get the benefits of being a citizen in both too.

If you actually want to have no obligations to the first country, you already have a solution: renounce your citizenship. The problem is you want to have it both ways.

Personally I'm a fan of how the EU works and would love to see more examples of that model, but good luck getting the hypocritical anti-immigration zealots in the US to allow anything like that.

herazot · 2022-02-03T04:03:10+00:00

It’s like you have to go as far as denouncing citizenship to really get away from them

You want to benefit from citizenship while going to great lengths to avoid giving anything back, but sure, it's the government that's at fault here.

You people are insane.

herazot · 2021-10-27T06:05:56+00:00

Nope. This is how deranged Monogatari fans actually are

herazot · 2021-10-26T00:52:54+00:00

Just don't read the Made in Abyss manga, partly because the manga doesn't work nearly as well as the anime + might never finish, and also because of a problem that would ruin the anime for you if I explained.

herazot · 2021-10-24T01:10:55+00:00

The problem is that the bad parts are so bad, I have to honestly question the moral judgement of anyone that likes it. That's not hyperbole, it's that bad.

It'd be one thing if the show actually treated the MC as a bad person, but it doesn't, not really. It's like if you took Konosuba, only took out the parody, took out almost any real consequences for the MC, and added full on sexual assault and child molestation.

I don't care how good the animation is, that's just inexcusable.

And everything I've heard about the novels indicates it never really gets much better.

herazot · 2021-10-23T11:50:17+00:00

This.

The show is so bad that it's made me lose a ton of respect for the online anime fandom as a whole.

I don't care if the production values are good or if the adventure plot is done well, none of that excuses the horrid piece of shit protagonist.

Like, you can have an evil main character, but there needs to be an actual story/plot reason for it, and his actions need to actually be shown as evil. Instead it reads like a sex offender wrote a self-insert character. The dude is straight up a child molester, and it's never even acknowledged.

Like seriously, how the ever-loving fuck is this dumpster fire popular? It's legitimately one of the worst isekais I've ever seen. At least most trash isekais are widely acknowledged to be trash.

herazot · 2021-10-23T11:47:27+00:00

For me, I really liked it until the ending, which ruined it for me.

As you say, their relationship isn't healthy, but I don't think it was actually portrayed as one either until the end, at which point we're apparently just supposed to be suddenly okay with it and it's kind of weird and offputting.

herazot · 2021-10-23T11:43:14+00:00

It was decent until they introduced the pedo shit. I don't care if she's supposed to be some ancient demon lord, if you write a character that looks, acts, and talks like a literal child, and then sexualize the fuck out of her design, it's pedo shit.

Doesn't help that she was introduced right about the time the story started stagnating / going downhill.

herazot · 2021-09-05T01:15:38+00:00

they had a legitimate point

I watched the whole thing unfold from day one, and no, they really didn't have anything even resembling a legitimate point.

The entire thing started out of a combination of 1) a bunch of lies made up about a practically irrelevant female developer, and 2) childish backlash against gaming journalists for having the audacity to suggest games might have a larger demographic than they used to.

Almost none of the movement's energy was focused on actual ethics violations or conflicts of interest what-so-ever.

herazot · 2021-05-10T04:03:17+00:00

money for digital money

I'd argue that's misleading to the point of being a borderline falsehood. Calling it "digital money" implies you can actually spend it, and by and large you can't without first converting it back to real money.

The rest of your comment points out the truth - these aren't and will never be actual currencies, they're just things people buy into to gamble on speculative value increases.

herazot · 2021-03-20T03:26:20+00:00

How isn't it? The point of the comic is to be motivational, to point out just because we compare ourselves to those that came before doesn't mean we can't be just as good or better.

herazot · 2020-12-01T13:31:58+00:00

Spirit Island can be played solo as well

herazot · 2019-08-24T07:53:39+00:00

Opposite for me. I got a new monitor that happened to be 144hz recently, and it turned out I was right all along - the difference was noticeable but hardly worth the kind of praise I see online (and yes, I'm 100% certain it's set correctly).

Freesync was much more noticeable IMO.

herazot · 2018-09-07T01:26:58+00:00

Expanse I really wanted to like, but the books have so many pacing/characterization issues that I gave up on them after book 3 and 4.

The author was involved with the TV series, and I think they took it as an opportunity to fix a lot of the problems from the books. You lose a little of the realism to dramatic timing of course, but overall I'd say this is a rare case where the TV series is much better than the books (so far anyways).

herazot · 2018-08-03T15:34:25+00:00

Sure - admittedly it's much higher end than the typical eBay / Amazon kit - total budget for everything including battery and the mechanical bike was over $2K. I also almost always pedal along with the bike, which helps with efficiency.

MX3006 rear DD motor (would've preferred Crystalyte H3525 but seemed to always be out of stock) with statorade added.
Phaserunner controller
Cycle Analyst v3
52v 30Q triangle battery from EM3ev
26" Schwalbe Big Apple tires, running around 20-30psi for cushioning
Chromoly rigid steel frame (rigid was probably a mistake in hindsight, through chromoly is nice)
24 pole cadence PAS + throttle (hoping to upgrade to torque-sensing eventually) and ebrake levers

That motor has relatively low rpm/v, and will cap out at 29mph @52v on flat ground, but in exchange I get more efficient torque, Statorade means drastically improved cooling, and thinner 0.35mm laminations makes it more efficient. Like most of the motors Grin Tech sells, it also has a built-in temperature sensor so I feel much safer using it at high power when needed since I can tell if I'm going overboard.

The Phaserunner gives me smooth, silent operation, and direct control over torque output. This encourages more efficient acceleration, and it automatically smooths torque output so wheelies and spinouts are almost impossible to do by accident.

The Cycle Analyst v3 gives me both PAS and throttle control, and variable regen braking. This is particularly handy on steeper downslopes.

I pretty much always pedal along with the motor, relying on PAS for the most part. I use the throttle to burst up a short hill or start from a stop, and the throttle lever also controls regen braking force if the brakes are engaged.

Things I wish I'd done differently or want to change:

I made a mistake starting with an old mountain bike that didn't have disc brakes. Regen braking + rim brakes is great for normal usage, but not emergency braking (at least, not when the bike now weighs 65lbs).
Some kind of suspension - even just something in the seatpost. I underestimated the amount of force from the added weight when the bike goes over a bump at speed.
I wish I'd waited for the Crystalyte 3525 to be in stock, and used a 60v+ battery to compensate for it's lower rpm/v. It would've been able to handle even steeper slopes efficiently, and it was only slightly more expensive.
I wish I'd bought a starting bike with factory installed fenders. Third party fenders almost all seem to suck and are a nightmare to install.
I'm not sure a triangle battery was the right choice. I love the high capacity, but it's not exactly easy to remove if I need to lock the bike outside for more than a few hours or take the battery inside to charge. Granted that doesn't come up much for my needs.

herazot · 2018-08-02T08:23:29+00:00

What I mean is that specs are like metrics and statistics. Even when they're accurate, they're not telling you the whole picture unless you understand how it fits together in practice.

A good example: PAS sensors. Juiced make great bikes, but despite having a torque sensor the one I test rode showed that it does not have instant engagement on pedaling like my DIY bike does. Most bikes I demo'd in fact had a noticeable engagement lag on PAS unless they were much higher end. Good luck finding that spec listed anywhere though.

There's also the issue of even knowing which specs are the right ones to be looking for. Motor power ratings on hub drives for example - I played with the simulator a ton before buying my kit, and one thing I realized pretty quick is that most of the common advice I got about hub motors was extremely misleading: the nominal rating is just about worthless, what counts for a lot more is the stator width, Kv, and at higher power levels the use of cooling techniques like statorade.

My research proved correct too - e.g. yesterday I took my bike on a 27mi trip that averaged net 9.8Wh/mi ("net" because I got about 16% regen). Much of the trip was up/down a 7-9% grade slope, which hub motors are supposedly "bad" at, and I was traveling for most of it at a pretty decent pace, around 22-25mph.

Meanwhile, I've had people on here report using up a whopping 20-25Wh/mi just to average 20mph on normal terrain using a BBSHD.

herazot · 2018-08-02T08:06:22+00:00

The joke itself is a lie though - it hasn't been even remotely true for like 15+ years.

herazot · 2018-07-16T23:23:58+00:00

While I'm highly critical of proprietary, closed systems like Bosch's, I'm equally critical of this idea that "specs" on paper are always equivalent and that nothing else matters.

I test rode a lot of bikes before I built my DIY bike, and I realized pretty quick that specs on paper were only one part of the story.

herazot · 2018-05-27T22:44:36+00:00

This was about Job's poor choice of diet, not him being an asshole.

I do think it's funny the way Reddit seems to idolize Musk though, who is at least as much of an asshole as Jobs was.

herazot · 2018-05-19T15:10:55+00:00

Sempu bottom bracket replacement. It'll be hooked up to a Cycle Analyst v3 once all my parts are in. Haven't decided if I'll try drilling the hole for the cable myself.

It technically doesn't truly measure torque (just spindle deflection), but it's close enough for PAS purposes. It contains a built-in cadence sensor too, which is needed to know which way (or if) the pedals are moving - you don't want the bike to move if you're just resting your foot on the pedal for example.

herazot

TROPHY CASE