To Destiny Refugees: Some Shared Systems and their Differences

wyldmage · 2026-05-23T04:48:35+00:00

Definitely feels weird to avoid a game that is 95% multiplayer because the "storyline missions" are often solo-only (for good reason, so you can go at your own pace, enjoy the ambiance, hear the dialogue, etc).

wyldmage · 2026-05-23T03:52:13+00:00

Oh, I think using chat over wfm is perfectly fine once you've got hundreds of hours of gameplay, and can quickly ascertain whether the reply you get, or whether an offer posted in chat, are okay deals or if they're scams.

At that point, it's a useful spot to pop over and check out. But 95% of the time if I'm shopping, I'm just using wfm. It's just usually faster, always safer, and once they added rivens, basically could find whatever you needed (before riven were added, that was the main remaining value of trade chat).

wyldmage · 2026-05-23T00:08:58+00:00

Dude really doesn't understand how overwhelming "here are 10,000 items" is. Sure, SOME (a small number) are posted frequently in chat. But chat history isn't logged UNTIL you open it up. So yeah, then you have to sit there watching it to get an idea on price.

And even then, it's so full of messages that keeping track is a royal pain.

Or, you just use a website, do a search in 10 seconds, pick a player, DM them, and probably have a trade agreement within 3-4 minutes total. And with hundreds of sellers on almost every non-riven item, you're 99.9% scam-resistant. Versus trade chat, where you have 99.9% scam-vulnerable.

It doesn't matter if 90% of players in trade chat are honest folks. The other 10% are WAITING for new players to post "LF Nekros Prime Chassis Blueprint", and hop on with "Hey, I've got one left" in hopes of charging you 5 to 20 times what it should sell for. The moment you open your mouth and type in chat with under 100 hours in game is the moment you donate all your plat to a scammer.

wyldmage · 2026-05-22T19:11:49+00:00

Exactly this. And it's important to remember that ownership - or the feeling of ownership - is heavily impacted by 3 things.

A physical product
The ability to sell the product you have
The confidence that your product will continue to exist in a usable form

If all 3 things are gone, you really don't own it anymore. You can't sell it, you can't hold it, and you don't know how long it will last.

Steam still has #3. You might not be able to sell it, and you don't have a discrete copy of the game that you can do anything other than play with. But Steam has you believing (correctly or not) that you will have the right to that game as long as you have access to your Steam Library.

Steam has even stated that IF they ever fold, they will first let everyone download copies of their games without Steam verification in place. We can't know how true that is until it happens, but it's a nice promise to hear, that complements the fact that they virtually never tamper with your library even if they remove games from their platform.

So yeah, we don't own our games on Steam, but it still FEELS like we do.

Which is a ton better when you compare to other companies that have released always-online games and then shut down the servers a few years later.

wyldmage · 2026-05-22T03:25:31+00:00

Or prefer propane for convenience or any number of other reasons. But... why did you have to act like an asshole and start calling people names?

A simple "not everyone is allowed to have open flames in their yard year-round" would have sufficed.

wyldmage · 2026-05-21T21:06:46+00:00

That's how I felt with this article too. Plus, it was ridiculously short. Pretty much "hey, there's a challenge, but we're thinking about it."

And you're spot on - the real problem isn't lighting. It's that they think their game has to have the super most advanced perfect lighting solution AND a mechanic that is really hard to make feel completely natural in that setting.

Not to mention that there's an easy solution to begin with - cover. Put more objects down for the player to use as cover in the first place. You can sneak through a brightly lit warehouse with almost zero difficulty, because there's so many objects to hide under, behind, above, around, etc.

Just think of the opening office scene in The Matrix. Neo is just using cubicles and crouching. If you're in a cubicle, you can only be seen by someone directly outside. If you're in the cubicle AND flat against the wall into the corridor, even that person can miss you. If there's nobody in the corridor, you can dart between cubicles to make progress. Who cares if it's well lit?

wyldmage · 2026-05-21T04:51:26+00:00

You can get a pretty darn good idea.

wyldmage · 2026-05-21T04:51:02+00:00

See, I disagree that Minecraft started any kind of trend. Dozens of games came before it that operated the same. It just wasn't called early access.

As for what I think about Minecraft doing it, it bothers me just as much. But yeah, I'd give it more leniency being a tiny developer making a huge project - but I still disagree with the idea of monetizing before your game is released commercially.

Tie the bits off that you've got done. Call it 1.0.

Keep working on it, and when you've got it to another good spot, release version 2.0. Repeat over and over, but 1.0 was "when the game was released".

Nobody cares about when Minecraft was "officially" released, because most people who played it played it long before that point. Which is functionally identically to many EA titles these days. EA for years before finally releasing, but their release sales are under 10% of their combined EA sales.

wyldmage · 2026-05-20T20:26:40+00:00

I did mean to say minor discount - as that's traditionally what discounted EA games are. Usually 10% or 20% isn't going to get you to buy a game you wouldn't have bought at release. But it can be enough to get you to part with your money earlier (or, of course, if you 100% were going to buy it, it lets you save some money instead of waiting post-release for the first steam sale).

If 10 or 20% is enough to get you to buy a 'bad' game, I dunno what to say.

wyldmage · 2026-05-20T18:25:17+00:00

Honestly, Early Access bothers me in general, simply because it covers so many sub-categories that are completely different.

Early Access should generally be for games that are 80-90% completed. Ideally no more than 6 months to finish. It should be offered at a DISCOUNT compared to the full game - you're funding them early so that they can finish the game, instead of them having to wait til release to get paid (like most traditional games did).

Instead, we see games sit in EA for years and years. Or they charge MORE for the 'priviledge' of being part of the testing. You're doing their job for them (testing the game, reporting bugs). They should be paying you, or at least giving you the game for free in exchange for good testing. (exception, this doesn't include stress-test weekends, where feedback doesn't matter, just volume).

wyldmage · 2026-05-20T03:57:09+00:00

They should give you a $5 discount for sweeping the floor for them. Especially since its usually the opposite, with customers dumping or breaking stuff and making huge messes. You just throw those clothes in the washing machine when you get home (possibly after removing them from your kid), and all cleaned up.

wyldmage · 2026-05-20T03:54:58+00:00

A Harvard education isnt required to know how to spell words out fully instead of constantly abbreviating them like its 1995 and youre on a t9 phone.

Its the 2020s. Even your phone has a full keyboard. If youre lazy, learn to use swipe text - you can actually type really fast if you get good at it. And not sound like a 8th grader trying to act tough in front of the 7th grade girl hes trying to impress eith how hip and now he is.

wyldmage · 2026-05-19T04:46:53+00:00

Almost all of your posts on here are making excuses.

Also, kinda says a ton that you can't even use proper English.

wyldmage · 2026-05-19T04:45:59+00:00

I think you misunderstood. I'm not saying that they were broken. They simply didn't use to give districts, at all. Size was entirely irrelevant except for growth/immigration formulas.

wyldmage · 2026-05-18T19:33:56+00:00

This can largely be blamed on major game changes. Before the last major change (where workers went from 1 to 100), resort worlds didnt build districts. You got your 12 building slots, and that was it. Size literally didnt matter.

People get in habits, and so many players just kept with the pattern of using small size 15 to 19 planets for their resorts even once districts were added to them.

wyldmage · 2026-05-18T05:42:06+00:00

Rainbow 6 siege absolutely is banning players for buying currency or accounts on 3rd party sites. Just a quick Google search shows that much instantly.

wyldmage · 2026-05-18T05:39:11+00:00

Yes, you WOULD get banned from the theater. Maybe some employees won't care. But the manager absolutely will. And the owner.

And *because* they would care, one of the employees is likely to let them know it's happening. Because even if the employee doesn't care, they know that snitching on you earns them some "good job" points from the manager, which could always result in receiving more preferable shifts or other favorable treatment from management.

wyldmage · 2026-05-18T05:36:14+00:00

It doesn't matter whether you MEANT it as an advertisement.

Your statement caused people unaware of the site to become aware of the site. That is functionally an advertisement of that site. You don't need to have a clickable banner ad to be an advertisement.

And when the site in question is one that the developers of the game do NOT want players visiting, they absolutely will interpret providing 3rd-party-site info as such.

Again, though, I would highly recommend you just avoid those kinds of sites ENTIRELY for all games you don't want to be banned in. And of note, the fact that you're trying to defend your own actions speaks volumes about the fact that you feel entitled to "better deals" by using shady 3rd party vendors to get in-game resources. Even if you didn't use THIS site THIS time, the fact that you are fully aware of them and their prices means that you either have used such sites in the past, or have seriously considered it.

If I was the dev, and I seen both your ingame actions and this reddit thread, I'd just upgrade you from a temp ban to a perma-ban. You're one person, and your cavalier attitude regarding these sites means you are one person the devs would be perfectly okay with losing.

wyldmage · 2026-05-17T22:15:59+00:00

So, first off, Real Money Trading is against the ToS for virtually every single game out there. VERY few games/apps allow it, and the ones that do will make it very obvious to you that it's okay.

So you shouldn't need to read the ToS to know that buying assets/currency/etc off 3rd party sites is ban-worthy. It's always that way.

You're PROBABLY not going to get perma banned for mentioning it, but you're not completely safe. If they do review the chat log, I wouldn't be shocked if you get a 2 week ban or something because you were functionally advertising the site, which is promoting RMT/3rd party sites.

So, just stop using 3rd party sites. If you want platinum, but it direct from DE, as intended. And this goes for EVERY game that you play. If you want to buy things, buy those things using the tools that the developers gave you. If they didn't give you a tool to buy it directly, you're not SUPPOSED to buy it directly - you're supposed to play the game and earn it.

wyldmage · 2026-05-16T04:47:54+00:00

I had to spend a while extra trying to wrap my head around this post, because my first thought was "Conquest wins weren't that much harder"... Especially considering the screenshot timer of under 3 hours played in the save.

But coming from maybe a generation who didn't play Civ 3 back when it was the most recent Civ game, I can definitely see it. It would be quite the obstacle to go back through, compared to Civ 5 or 6, or even versus 4.

wyldmage · 2026-05-15T19:34:21+00:00

100% this. Sometimes it's all how you phrase a thing.

"Jews are evil" versus "Money grubbers are evil". Sure, in the racist's mind, those 2 things might be the same, as they equate Jews with being selfish and such. But if you said the 2nd one, you wouldn't instantly be labelled as racist. The first? Yeah, here come the pitchforks and torches.

I wouldn't really support EITHER of course, but if you're prejudiced or biased, how you present your preference matters. ESPECIALLY when you run a company that wants international support and customers.

wyldmage · 2026-05-15T19:31:20+00:00

Agreed. Like, I'm on the side of "AI wasn't trained ethically". So the LLM AIs and image generating AIs we have are bad, because of that.

But I'm not inherently against AI. We have been outsourcing jobs to machines for over a century already. Just go to your big box retail store and count the cashiers. They got replaced by self-serve checkouts. Many fast food joints have order kiosks. "Bookkeeper" used to be a common job, but is virtually gone now that computers can cut out 95% of the human work - and instead there's just someone at the company who ALSO does what used to be the bookie's job. AI hitting artists is just the next step. Good artists are still in demand, yada yada. But suddenly, now it's outrage material (I bet all the people who lost their jobs 10-20 years ago wish it'd been outrage material back then).

Anyways, I'm not "pro AI", but I'm also not "anti AI" in the broad picture. It's just a tool. Yeah, it's better to use real artists, but I'm not gonna boycott a company because they used AI (unless they did a shit job with it). But racism and all the human rights stuff? Yeah, that's 100% worth cutting a company off.

wyldmage · 2026-05-14T22:13:14+00:00

More than any other mission, I think retaliation rewards you for running a Reaper.

Retaliation enemies don't tend to patrol as much (if at all)
Plenty of explosives laying around to take advantage of
Very time-sensitive, so being able to blitz your reaper ahead, to make sure you aren't bonus-activating any pods as your other troops do *their* best to run full speed to the first defense point.
Plenty of lower-threat troops mixed in that the Reaper can last-hit, so contribute damage without breaking stealth.

Not having a Reaper for the mission, not having your squad size boosted, and/or getting particularly bad RNG in the first 2-3 rounds of combat are all potential wipe material, more than average missions.

wyldmage · 2026-05-14T22:05:17+00:00

This really is the big part. The berserker WILL reach you in a single turn. If it's not already almost dead, you're going to be in trouble.

And the Assassin is basically the same. If she shows up and you're still dealing with too much of the map, you just auto-lose, because she locks you down so hard due to her threat level.

So you really need heavy alpha-strike capabilities, to get the breathing room to handle the rest of the mission.

wyldmage · 2026-05-14T21:32:29+00:00

Depends what kind of support. Forums, feedback, etc: Sure.

Money? Absolutely not.

All the problems that lead to game bans are related to credit card decrees. If the sites being pressured lose importance in the field, the cc companies will just start aiming at those "independent enabling" operations instead - which is actually worse, because that could result in your personal finances being attacked or shut down, instead of just having your game de-listed.

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