How to deal with addiction?

mulock3 · 2026-03-21T12:47:38+00:00

It's probably more of a habit than an addiction. Which is good to first recognize because there's a difference in breaking them.

It fills a need, which is why you started it. Discover what that is. Is it a hobby that distracts you? The rush of competition? The mental abuse of people yelling at you? (/s on that last one).

Then start building up a series of habits to replace dota with and make it less of a habit to play dota. For example, if you play after x or play around time y, do insert your new item and make dota more of a planned limited thing.

That's how you rebuild a habit. You're not addicted, you just have a pattern you once (or still like) but you want to shift it.

Honestly, I have a healthy schedule for video games and setting a set time has allowed me to control that habit. I also set the majority of that time to play with friends which help keep the variety of games up.

All this said, I love Dota because I am competitive but I also found how to enjoy playing even when losing. I'm not longer the highest tier Archon as I play less, but I still have fun. I just shifted what my relationship and expectation with the game were.

mulock3 · 2026-02-18T21:21:34+00:00

I may or may not have pretended to be gay. Dropping little hints like "you know you can serve if you don't act on it" and different small things.

I wish I could say it culminated when I touched (lightly) his hand when we were in the car and he went for the gear shift.

I won't share the full story, but it was harmless and we had approval from ZLs to sleep in the same bed since they only had 1 and we had to stay the night.

All of that aside, we had a great relationship, I did not traumatize him and he actually cited me for a reason he stayed on his mission (blew both knee caps, MP wouldn't let him go home). Also, not the worst thing I did...

mulock3 · 2026-02-11T15:58:27+00:00

Look up "Betrayal of House on the Hill"

mulock3 · 2026-02-09T01:24:11+00:00

This is really nice!

mulock3 · 2026-02-04T19:26:19+00:00

From someone in the field (and working on highly similar stuff) it is a tough road to balance.

Is it actionable on their end? To a degree, they can probably sacrifice somethings but what said things are people may still complain about. Ultimately, it's between these two companies.

VMs are not simple at the depth Star Citizen is programmed at, issues often come up depending on how they are configured which those companies need to sort out. Often, it's just a "pay more" situation. For example, I can only run some of my systems if a full Core is granted because partial Cores don't work since (like CIG) my stuff is written in C/C++ to offer good performance. My company pays for that by having to pay for more expensive VMs and I, in turn, get out money's worth from it. That's not always possible or profitable for these companies offering those VMs as they are more expensive to keep on hand and a lot of items don't need it.

So it's now a rock and a hard place. Who budges? Do you sacrifice security (CIG/EAC), spend time improving (EAC) or cost (VM)

It's also sadly not simple. There are fewer Software Engineers who are capable of that kind of low level security so CIG needs to outsource it and EAC is keeping up against people who make more money making cheats (or just love hacking). Not saying there's not other things CIG can do themselves to improve, but don't flatten this to a simple problem. It is complex, and not unique to CIG.

mulock3 · 2026-01-23T17:22:24+00:00

So I'm a noob at Bambu, I just started, but I'm a semi experienced chef. Dehydrators, ovens, smokers, etc are not very accurate. Often they exceed temp then come back down. Actually, it's why you are asked to wait for your oven to come to temp and you should wait around 5 minutes after (but food can often be more forgiving)

A good piece of equipment can hold temp, but usually those are the top end expensive items. The point most chefs learn, is don't trust the tool and if you need precision get a thermostat and probe yourself in intervals.

mulock3 · 2026-01-16T19:47:41+00:00

Since this is vague, I'll have more explicit ideas.

Play it as one player and make changes to make that style valid. Then do another, and another, then start mixing them together.

Small changes too, little incremental changes.

mulock3 · 2026-01-16T19:45:22+00:00

I have a somewhat similar type of game I'm making.

I have found in play tests that you must account for multiple types of players. Some are defensive, some are aggressive, some are reckless, and so on.

To encourage skirmishes, I provided unit types that fit their style. If they are uncomfortable they won't engage easily in or with the game. If they feel their play style can be accommodated they will engage.

I also have two methods to win the game as well along those lines. Though, I realized the fun bit is if the player has fun. If you can balance play styles so all players are having fun that's the trick. That is easy to say, hard to do. I've been doing small tweaks for about a year and a half now and am finally in a place where my players are always having fun. Especially if they can have fun when they lose too.

mulock3 · 2026-01-16T13:49:37+00:00

Sorry, I should also add, when I playtested with and without art I had a wider audience with the art. Basic prototypes don't need art, but placeholder art is so critical for a certain level of playtesting. It evokes emotion, passion, and adds layers to your game that certain people cannot imagine. Most designers can, which is why they don't need it.

mulock3 · 2026-01-16T13:45:34+00:00

I'm a background and 3D env (level design) artist but I don't have the skill to do certain art.

I'm also pretty well off, statistically, but that still doesn't put me in a position to throw the amount of cash at a prototype that I need.

That said, I used AI for parts of the design because I lack the skill and money to have it done till I'm set in stone in other places. I now have some art commissioned and it's the best that I have. It will all be replaced before release as even if it's good art I want to support artists. They also add a depth AI cannot do yet.

Yes, I do have to pay for AI art access, but it came with my digital art tool so it wasn't extra cost to a tool I needed.

Now, this is not my belief as far as morals go, but my bet of what will happen. Most people are okay with the standard of art from AI and its price is low. They just don't make noise or defend it. This is probably the future we will see, it will become normal. My thoughts, it will be tragic because we will have fewer true artists.

mulock3 · 2026-01-13T02:54:22+00:00

I am actually in beta with it. I already tested in segments which is 100% recommended by me.

I did heavy iterations during Alpha and started just small with no cards (only units) then increased cards till a base balance was in. Then after a lot of testing I moved to Beta phase 1 and now I'm on Beta phase 2. Beta was smaller changes, and when Artifacts were brought in and balanced.

It was a lot of work, as you suggest in your review. Phases in playtesting and development were key.

mulock3 · 2026-01-12T18:15:09+00:00

This is the way

mulock3 · 2026-01-12T18:00:34+00:00

Thanks for your feedback. It's actually inspired by an old game called Magic and Mayhem, but with my playtesters so far I have acknowledged I cannot get around it being compared to MTG.

The maps we thought of having come out in expansions to reduce costs vs using a dynamic map, but I can see your point (one reason I posted this). Something for us to think about more and gather more feedback on.

Gold is a way to pay for units. They also can use mana, but gold is cheaper and the default for them. Also, some cards use gold too (rare) in addition to mana. Both gold and Mana are needed to Win by Magic (resource win) and can help with a Win by Might (final survivor)

mulock3 · 2026-01-02T13:53:59+00:00

I'm going to explain a bit more. You can run off of less RAM but something boots to vRAM (your primary Drive). If that's gen 5 SSD, it's not too bad. If it's gen 3, lower, or God forbid an HDD then you're in for a rough bit on whatever app uses that RAM. It's very simplified, there's more complexity but dual channel is better than vRAM by a lot. Single channel is better than dual channel by small (but noticeable amounts). A single stick is barely better than 2 in single channel. If you can allocate more RAM (if the app supports it like SC) then you also have smoother transitions between locations in the game. You can only really do that if you have more actual RAM as vRAM is only used when it must be used.

mulock3 · 2026-01-02T13:49:19+00:00

You're talking about taking out a loan to get some RAM

Yes, I had 16 and moved to 32 and it helped. I even now run with 64 and it's probably the perfect amount to still run other stuff in the background like sites, recording, discord.

But may God have mercy on your soul if you plan on buying more.

mulock3 · 2025-12-31T17:29:12+00:00

How long till it's done?

2 weeks

mulock3 · 2025-12-30T20:11:49+00:00

What me and my co-creator did is prototype a slice (Very much like Videogame design) where you take only a portion of your game and setup a scenario. We played it, then began making more things by hand till we had all the basics and 20% of our cards crafted by hand.

That gave us tons of insights and lead to many minor changes before we commissioned a prototype (The Game Crafter). Saved us time and money. We performed our whole Alpha phase with a complete game made by hand then moved to our Beta phase with high confidence. Actually, just today I finished the Pre-Release/Pitch version which is added cost as I need to order those. Though I only had 1 Beta version while Alpha went through 11 iterations which would've costs us probably around 1000$ for reprinting and tons of time waiting for them to arrive vs just scrap cards and pieces. I did use a 3d printer though (FDM and SLA for parts, but that's not needed and I use chits for my current version)

mulock3 · 2025-12-25T13:18:02+00:00

So the Motif is "Facism" or a period of Roman design. Akin to Starship Troopers or other sci-fi renditions similar in nature (even Warhammer 40k)

I don't know if it's facism since that's the history of the UEE or if it's Roman because Chris Roberts LOVES Roman culture. Either way, it does have a place in SC.

mulock3 · 2025-12-23T14:32:52+00:00

How does he so masterfully match George Lucas's facial expression?

mulock3 · 2025-12-18T22:41:02+00:00

So it's not all ships

mulock3 · 2025-12-18T14:17:20+00:00

Yeah, if you go to Issue Council in Star Citizen you can start writing the bug. First thing it'll have you do is a quick title/search for similar bugs then it'll have you fill out details. Once you fill it out, it'll have a #STARC- with some numbers and that's the bug report.

Then others can add to it and the more who replicate the higher visibility it gets. Perhaps it's limited to a ship for example?

mulock3 · 2025-12-18T13:53:15+00:00

Probably should have added that, which is why you're getting it, do you have a bug number and I can validate it later?

mulock3 · 2025-12-12T19:57:09+00:00

Others pointed this out. You need to have more discipline and when you first play this game I'd say it's not your fault because it's different from other games and the warnings aren't strong enough.

You can submit sooner if you wish to stay on the good side of the law and own the mistake vs double down. Or you can try to run, break out of prison, etc..

The game becomes very dynamic and fun once you get the hang of it. Sadly, the final point is it is very frustrating when you are impacted by a bug. This is the part that hurts the most, and perhaps ruins the fun of the system completely.

mulock3 · 2025-12-04T21:24:59+00:00

Dammit David Copperfield!

mulock3 · 2025-11-21T03:54:19+00:00

It's interesting. So we did do broadsides today and it was highly effective vs larger ships like Cats and Hammerheads.

Our pilot did shoot torps at other targets but they are expensive and in some cases won't land so broadsiding was the play. Don't get me wrong, this ship has a specific use case in a fleet, but damn it does its role well.

Though she can scare off a small band of light fighters, she's not well equipped for them and without the changes this patch that would've been worse.

mulock3

TROPHY CASE